head to head · open source
Zitadel vs Authgear
Zitadel has 15,041 GitHub stars, 1,309 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Authgear has 2,054 stars, 124 forks, 368 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zitadel leads on adoption by 632% (15,041 vs 2,054 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Authgear is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Zitadel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Authgear 6%. Zitadel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 6 topic tags (2fa, authentication, identity, login), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Zitadel | Authgear | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 124 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zitadel if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Authgear if
- You want the Authgear feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Authgear fits your workflow better
About Zitadel
Zitadel is an open source identity and access management platform written in Go and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It lives in the open source IAM ecosystem and provides identity infrastructure for developers who need to operate an authentication and authorization layer themselves.
read the full Zitadel overview →
About Authgear
Authgear is open source identity and access management platform. It is managed identity platform for any app. It is open source Auth0, Clerk, Firebase Auth alternative. It is written in Go, licensed Apache 2.0, and lives in identity and access management ecosystem.
read the full Authgear overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or Authgear more popular?
Zitadel has 15,041 GitHub stars and Authgear has 2,054. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and Authgear free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Authgear under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zitadel and Authgear?
Zitadel is written in Go and Authgear in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Zitadel or Authgear?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,041 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Authgear if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.