Keycloak vs authentik
Both are alternatives to Auth0. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Keycloak
TOP PICKThe mature, CNCF-backed open-source identity and access management server.
Keycloak is a full-featured IAM server originally built by Red Bull's security team and now a CNCF Incubating project. It supports OIDC, OAuth2, and SAML, social and enterprise identity brokering, fine-grained authorization, and a built-in admin console, and it's the most widely deployed self-hosted alternative to Auth0/Okta in production today.
authentik
A modern, self-hostable identity provider with a flexible visual flow builder.
authentik is a self-hosted identity provider built around a visual 'flow' system that lets you customize login, enrollment, and recovery steps without deep protocol expertise. It supports OIDC, SAML, LDAP, SCIM, and social login, and ships as a straightforward Docker Compose or Helm deployment aimed at teams who want Keycloak-class capability with a friendlier setup experience.
Side by side
| Keycloak | authentik | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 90 | 85 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first | Yes | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT (core); authentik/enterprise/ subdirectory carries its own separate license for paid enterprise features |
| Pricing | Free / self-host (Docker image or standalone distribution); commercial support available via Red Hat build of Keycloak (RHBK) for enterprises that want a support contract. | Free / self-host for the core MIT-licensed product; a hosted 'authentik Security' cloud offering and an Enterprise tier (support SLA, extra features under the separate enterprise/ license) are available paid. |
Keycloak is Macrostack's recommended Auth0 alternative, so it's our pick here.
Keycloak
Strengths
- +Apache-2.0, fully open-source, no feature gating between a 'community' and 'enterprise' edition
- +Extremely mature — 10+ years in production at large scale, CNCF Incubating project with active governance
- +Broad protocol support (OIDC, SAML, OAuth2) and identity brokering to external IdPs out of the box
- +Large ecosystem of themes, extensions, and Kubernetes operators for production deployment
Trade-offs
- −Runs on the JVM — heavier resource footprint than lightweight Go-based alternatives, and the admin console/config model has a real learning curve
- −You own uptime, patching, and database backups for something security-critical — a genuine operational responsibility Auth0 absorbs for you
- −Theming the login UI to match a product's brand takes more custom work than Auth0's Universal Login customization
authentik
Strengths
- +Genuinely MIT-licensed for the core product — no AGPL copyleft concerns for embedding or forking
- +Visual flow builder makes multi-step login/enrollment/recovery customization far more approachable than editing raw protocol config
- +Good out-of-box support for LDAP and SCIM alongside OIDC/SAML, useful for bridging older enterprise directories
- +Active, fast-moving project with frequent releases
Trade-offs
- −The enterprise/ directory ships under authentik's own separate license, not MIT — some advanced features are gated behind the paid tier even when self-hosting the core
- −Younger and smaller community than Keycloak, so fewer third-party guides and Stack Overflow answers exist for edge cases
- −Flow builder flexibility means misconfiguration is possible; production hardening still requires real identity-ops knowledge
Facts verified 2026-07-14. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.