head to head · open source
hydra vs Zitadel
hydra has 17,647 GitHub stars, 1,619 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Zitadel has 15,508 stars, 1,417 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hydra leads on adoption by 14% (17,647 vs 15,508 stars). hydra is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. hydra has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Zitadel 9%. Zitadel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (authorization, identity, oauth2), 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
| hydra | Zitadel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick hydra if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Zitadel if
- You want the Zitadel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Zitadel fits your workflow better
About hydra
Chat · Discussions · Newsletter · Docs · Try Ory Network · Jobs Ory Hydra is a hardened, OpenID Certified OAuth 2.0 Server and OpenID Connect Provider optimized for low latency, high throughput, and low resource consumption. It connects to your existing identity provider through a login and consent app, giving you absolute control over the user interface and experience. What is Ory Hydra? Why Ory Hydra OAuth2 and OpenID Connect: Open Standards OpenID Connect Certified Deployment options Use Ory Hydra on the Ory Network Self host Ory Hydra Quickstart Who is using Ory Hydra Ecosystem Ory Kratos: Identity and User…
read the full hydra overview →
About Zitadel
The Identity Infrastructure for Developers ZITADEL is an open source identity and access management platform built for teams that need more than basic auth. Whether you're securing a SaaS product, building a B2B platform, or self hosting a production IAM stack — ZITADEL gives you everything out of the box: SSO, MFA, Passkeys, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, and a battle tested multi tenancy model. No vendor lock in. No compromise on control. Just a robust, API first identity platform you can own. 🏡 Website 💬 Chat 📋 Docs 🧑💻 Blog 📞 Contact Why ZITADEL We built ZITADEL to handle the hardest IAM challenges at scale —…
read the full Zitadel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or Zitadel more popular?
hydra has 17,647 GitHub stars and Zitadel has 15,508. hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are hydra and Zitadel free?
Both are open source. hydra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Zitadel under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hydra and Zitadel?
hydra is written in Go and Zitadel 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, hydra or Zitadel?
Choose hydra if you want the larger community (17,647 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Zitadel if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.