ZITADEL vs Logto
Both are alternatives to Okta. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Logto vs ZITADEL — same comparison, one verdict.
ZITADEL and Logto are closely matched on ownership (88 vs 87) — this one comes down to pricing and to which trade-offs below you can live with.
ZITADEL
Multi-tenant identity built for products, not just employees.
ZITADEL is aimed at a different job: identity for your customers rather than your staff. It is multi-tenant by design, so a SaaS company can give each customer organisation its own users, branding and policies without running separate deployments. Event-sourced audit trail, passwordless and OIDC/SAML support, AGPL-3.0, around 15k stars, Swiss-based — which matters to buyers who care where the directory lives. If you are choosing an Auth0 replacement rather than an Okta replacement, this is the closest fit.
Logto
The fastest route from nothing to working sign-in.
Logto is the pragmatic middle: pre-built sign-in UI, SDKs for the common frameworks, social logins, MFA and multi-tenancy, deployable with Docker in well under an hour. It is aimed squarely at product teams who need authentication to work this week rather than an identity platform to administer for a decade. MPL-2.0 with a paid cloud tier. It is the smallest and youngest option here, which is the honest caveat, but for a startup replacing Auth0 it removes the most friction.
Side by side
10 points of comparison, every one read from a verified field. Green marks the side that wins a row outright. A dash means we do not hold that fact — never that it is zero.
| ZITADEL | Logto | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty ScoreOur transparent 0–100 composite for data ownership and exit cost. | 88 | 87 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first data | Yes | Yes |
| License | AGPL-3.0 (open core; paid cloud and enterprise tiers) | MPL-2.0 (open core; paid cloud tier) |
| Pricing | Free and self-hostable. ZITADEL Cloud is paid per active user. | Free and self-hostable. Logto Cloud is paid with a free tier. |
| RAM to run it wellThe figure that actually matters, not the vendor's minimum. | 4 GB | — |
| Realistic running costWhat the box costs each month if you run it yourself. | $24–40/mo plus Postgres, against Okta or Auth0 per-user pricing | — |
| Setup timeHonest first-install estimate, not the marketing quickstart. | Half a day | — |
| Ongoing maintenanceThe part nobody budgets for. | Moderate. | — |
ZITADEL edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
ZITADEL
Strengths
- +Multi-tenant by design — the right shape for customer identity
- +Event-sourced, so the audit trail is complete by construction
- +Swiss company and hosting, which answers a real procurement question
- +Modern passwordless and OIDC support
Trade-offs
- −Aimed at customer identity; weaker for internal employee SSO
- −AGPL-3.0 copyleft needs reading
- −Smaller ecosystem than Keycloak
- −Some features reserved for the paid tiers
Logto
Strengths
- +Fastest of these from zero to a working sign-in flow
- +Sign-in UI included — no screens to build
- +Good SDKs for React, Next.js, Vue and the mobile frameworks
- +MPL-2.0 is permissive and easy to reason about
Trade-offs
- −Youngest and smallest project on this page
- −Not built for employee SSO across hundreds of apps
- −Fewer enterprise features than Keycloak
- −Multi-tenancy is newer and less proven than ZITADEL's
Which one fits you
The trade-offs above, turned into a decision. Find the line that describes your team.
Choose ZITADEL
if a lower exit cost matters more to you than any single feature, and multi-tenant by design — the right shape for customer identity.
Choose Logto
if fastest of these from zero to a working sign-in flow.
Neither, yet
if both carry a real cost you should weigh first — aimed at customer identity; weaker for internal employee SSO, and youngest and smallest project on this page. If either of those is a dealbreaker for your team, the shortlist is wrong rather than the choice.
What it takes to run these yourself
Real requirements and honest running costs, not the vendor quickstart.
ZITADEL vs Logto — common questions
Is ZITADEL a better fit than Logto for identity & access management?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and the honest split is this: ZITADEL scores 88 to Logto's 87 on data ownership and exit cost, so it is the safer choice if you care about being able to leave. Logto earns its place on a different axis — fastest of these from zero to a working sign-in flow. Neither is a wrong answer for every team; the table above is the actual comparison.
What happens if we want to switch later?
ZITADEL keeps its data local or in open formats, so leaving is an export rather than a negotiation. Logto is still self-hostable, so the files stay on your server either way — but it is not local-first by design, so check what its export produces before you rely on it.
Can I self-host ZITADEL or Logto?
Both can be self-hosted. The difference is what it costs you in time rather than whether it is possible — see the setup and maintenance rows above.
Are ZITADEL and Logto both alternatives to Okta?
Yes — both appear in our Okta comparison, which is why they are worth putting side by side. People usually arrive here already having decided to move off Okta and now choosing between the two replacements, which is a narrower and much easier question.
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-08-03. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.