head to head · open source
Zitadel vs samlify
Zitadel has 15,060 GitHub stars, 1,317 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. samlify has 661 stars, 233 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Zitadel leads on adoption by 2,178% (15,060 vs 661 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; samlify is written in TypeScript under MIT. Zitadel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, samlify 35%. Zitadel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | samlify | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 661 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-08-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 233 |
| 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 samlify if
- You want the samlify feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and samlify 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 samlify
Node.js SAML 2.0 library for Single Sign On, written in TypeScript under the MIT licence, for developers adding SAML SSO to Node.js applications as either a Service Provider or an Identity Provider.
read the full samlify overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or samlify more popular?
Zitadel has 15,060 GitHub stars and samlify has 661. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and samlify free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and samlify under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zitadel and samlify?
Zitadel is written in Go and samlify 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 samlify?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,060 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose samlify if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.