head to head · open source
Zitadel vs polis
Zitadel has 15,092 GitHub stars, 1,324 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped today. polis has 2,266 stars, 234 forks, 35 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Zitadel leads on adoption by 566% (15,092 vs 2,266 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; polis is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Zitadel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, polis 10%. Zitadel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (oidc, openid-connect), 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 | polis | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-25 | 2026-07-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 234 |
| 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 polis if
- You want the polis feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and polis 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 polis
Ory Polis is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed single sign on service that bridges SAML login flows to OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect and adds SCIM 2.0 directory sync, aimed at developers and platform teams that need enterprise authentication and automated user provisioning in web applications without implementing those protocols themselves.
read the full polis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or polis more popular?
Zitadel has 15,092 GitHub stars and polis has 2,266. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and polis free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and polis under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zitadel and polis?
Zitadel is written in Go and polis 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 polis?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,092 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose polis if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.