head to head · open source
Zitadel vs Hexclave
Zitadel has 15,041 GitHub stars, 1,309 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hexclave has 6,861 stars, 522 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zitadel leads on adoption by 119% (15,041 vs 6,861 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Hexclave is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Zitadel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Hexclave 8%. Hexclave was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (authentication, authorization), 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 | Hexclave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 522 |
| 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 Hexclave if
- You want the Hexclave feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Hexclave 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 Hexclave
Hexclave is an open source user infrastructure platform written in TypeScript and distributed under a license the repository metadata lists as NOASSERTION, while the README badge states MIT / AGPLv3. It describes itself as handling everything around a product's users: authentication, teams, payments, emails, analytics, and more. The project lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem, shipping SDKs for Next.js, React, and plain JavaScript, and it is positioned against hosted identity and user management services such as Auth0 and Clerk, both of which appear in its topic list.
read the full Hexclave overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or Hexclave more popular?
Zitadel has 15,041 GitHub stars and Hexclave has 6,861. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and Hexclave free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Hexclave has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zitadel and Hexclave?
Zitadel is written in Go and Hexclave in TypeScript. 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 Hexclave?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,041 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Hexclave if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.