head to head · open source
Zitadel vs SuperTokens
Zitadel has 15,499 GitHub stars, 1,413 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SuperTokens has 15,340 stars, 788 forks, 155 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zitadel leads on adoption by 1% (15,499 vs 15,340 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; SuperTokens is written in Java under a custom or non-standard licence. Zitadel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, SuperTokens 5%. Zitadel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (authentication, login), 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 | SuperTokens | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 15K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 788 |
| 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 SuperTokens if
- You want the SuperTokens feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and SuperTokens 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 SuperTokens
Open Source auth provider Add secure login and session management to your apps. SDKs available for popular languages and front end frameworks e.g. Node.js, Go, Python, React.js, React Native, Vanilla JS, etc. Supertokens architecture is optimized to add secure authentication for your users without compromising on user and developer experience Three building blocks of SuperTokens architecture 1. Frontend SDK: Manages session tokens and renders login UI widgets 2. Backend SDK: Provides APIs for sign up, sign in, signout, session refreshing, etc. Your Frontend will talk to these APIs 3. SuperTokens Core: The HTTP…
read the full SuperTokens overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or SuperTokens more popular?
Zitadel has 15,499 GitHub stars and SuperTokens has 15,340. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and SuperTokens free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and SuperTokens has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zitadel and SuperTokens?
Zitadel is written in Go and SuperTokens in Java. 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 SuperTokens?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,499 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose SuperTokens if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.