head to head · open source
Zitadel vs Permify
Zitadel has 15,041 GitHub stars, 1,309 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Permify has 5,952 stars, 323 forks, 75 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zitadel leads on adoption by 153% (15,041 vs 5,952 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Permify is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Zitadel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Permify 5%. Zitadel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | Permify | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 323 |
| 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 Permify if
- You want the Permify 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 Permify 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 Permify
Permify is an open source authorization service for building and managing fine grained, scalable, and extensible access controls for applications and services. It is inspired by Google's consistent, global authorization system, Zanzibar, and it lives in the Go ecosystem, distributed under the AGPL 3.0 license. The project is categorized under Security & Privacy, specifically Identity & Access Management, and it has been acquired by FusionAuth.
read the full Permify overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or Permify more popular?
Zitadel has 15,041 GitHub stars and Permify has 5,952. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and Permify free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Permify under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zitadel and Permify?
Zitadel is written in Go and Permify 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 Permify?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,041 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Permify if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.