Keycloak
96 · HealthyIdentity and access management server with SSO, OIDC, SAML and user federation (CNCF).
Open source Auth & identity
authentik
88 · HealthyIdentity provider with flows, SSO across OIDC, SAML, LDAP and a proxy outpost.
Logto
86 · HealthyAuth and identity service for SaaS and AI apps, built on OIDC with organizations and RBAC.
ZITADEL
84 · HealthyMulti-tenant identity platform with event-sourced audit trail and B2B organizations.
Ory Kratos
79 · StableHeadless identity and user-management server with an API-first design.
SuperTokens
74 · StableAuthentication backend with prebuilt UI, sessions and multi-tenancy.
Authelia
71 · StableSingle sign-on and two-factor portal that sits in front of web apps via a reverse proxy.
Directory / Auth & identity / Ory Kratos
Ory Kratos
Headless identity and user-management server with an API-first design.
Will it still be around?
Health 79/100 · Stable
Activity, bus factor and issue responsiveness. Breakdown
Alternative to
Savings proposal
At $35 a month (Auth0 Essentials (B2C)), self-hosting Ory Kratos costs more: about $264 a month to run plus $1,200 to set up. It pays off once your Auth0 bill is above $264 a month, so enter your actual bill.
List price: Auth0 Essentials (B2C), billed monthly. Priced by monthly active users ($35 covers 500). B2B Essentials starts at $150 and B2B Professional at $800, so enter your actual bill. Source, checked 2026-10-07.
Extra cost over 3 years
$9,444
Pays for itself
Not at this size
Extra cost in year one
$3,948
Each month
$35 → $264
Show as a table
| Month | Auth0 | Self-hosted | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Today | $0 | $1,200 | −$1,200 |
| Month 3 | $105 | $1,992 | −$1,887 |
| Month 6 | $210 | $2,784 | −$2,574 |
| Month 9 | $315 | $3,576 | −$3,261 |
| Month 12 | $420 | $4,368 | −$3,948 |
| Month 18 | $630 | $5,952 | −$5,322 |
| Month 24 | $840 | $7,536 | −$6,696 |
| Month 30 | $1,050 | $9,120 | −$8,070 |
| Month 36 | $1,260 | $10,704 | −$9,444 |
Assumptions you can change
Self-hosting Ory Kratos usually means an app server, a database and a cache or worker. Hours are for one engineer; the server cost is a typical cloud VPS with backups and grows with the number of people using it.
Not included: paid editions or features of Ory Kratos (see What's free?), large data migrations, and compliance work. All amounts in US dollars at list price; your negotiated price may differ.
Health score: 79/100
Activity45% weight
77/100
- Last commit 71 days ago (88/100).
- 406 commits in the past 12 months (100/100).
- 2 releases in the past 12 months (33/100).
Bus factor30% weight
93/100
- Top contributor wrote 30% of the last 100 commits (past 12 months).
- 14 people authored those commits.
Responsiveness25% weight
64/100
- 90% of all issues are closed (150 open, 1305 closed) (99/100).
- 12 of 30 recent issues got a reply or were closed (40/100).
Score v2. How the health score works.
License
Apache License 2.0 · Open source (permissive)
OSI-approved license with few conditions beyond keeping the copyright notice.
Detected by GitHub as Apache-2.0.
What's free?
Enterprise features many open-core projects keep for paid plans.
| Feature | Self-hosted, free? |
|---|---|
| SSO (SAML) | Unknown |
| SSO (OIDC) | Unknown |
| SCIM provisioning | Unknown |
| Audit logs | Unknown |
| Role-based access control | Unknown |
| Multi-tenancy | Unknown |
We haven't verified which of these features are free for this project yet.
GitHub metrics
| Stars | 14k | Forks | 1.2k |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last commit | 2 months ago | Commits, 12 months | 406 |
| Releases, 12 months | 2 | Last release | 7 months ago |
| Contributors | 236 | Active authors | 14 in last 100 commits |
| Open issues | 150 | Closed issues | 1.3k |
Funding: patreon · open collective
Snapshot from 2026-10-08.