head to head · open source
Zitadel vs privacyidea
Zitadel has 15,507 GitHub stars, 1,416 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. privacyidea has 1,790 stars, 369 forks, 193 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Zitadel leads on adoption by 766% (15,507 vs 1,790 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; privacyidea is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. Zitadel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, privacyidea 21%. privacyidea was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (2fa, authentication, fido2, mfa), 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 | privacyidea | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 369 |
| 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 privacyidea if
- You want the privacyidea feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and privacyidea 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 privacyidea
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read the full privacyidea overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or privacyidea more popular?
Zitadel has 15,507 GitHub stars and privacyidea has 1,790. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and privacyidea free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and privacyidea under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zitadel and privacyidea?
Zitadel is written in Go and privacyidea in Python. 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 privacyidea?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,507 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose privacyidea if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.