head to head · open source
Zitadel vs polis
Zitadel has 15,549 GitHub stars, 1,420 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. polis has 2,272 stars, 239 forks, 35 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Zitadel leads on adoption by 584% (15,549 vs 2,272 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 11%. 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 | ★ 16K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-08 | 2026-07-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 239 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zitadel if
- You weight community size — 16K 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
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 →
About polis
Ory polis Open source Enterprise SSO and Directory Sync Chat Discussions Newsletter Guide API Docs Support this project! Work in Open Source, Ory is hiring! Ory Polis formerly known as BoxyHQ Jackson bridges or proxies a SAML login flow to OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect, abstracting away all the complexities of the SAML protocol. It also supports Directory Sync via the SCIM 2.0 protocol for automatic user and group provisioning/de provisioning. Ory Polis also supports OpenID Connect providers. Ory Polis on the Ory Network The Ory Network is the fastest, most secure and worry free way to use Ory's Services. SAML &…
read the full polis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or polis more popular?
Zitadel has 15,549 GitHub stars and polis has 2,272. 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 (15,549 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.