SHSelfHostIndex

FreeIPA vs Ory Kratos

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted identity & sso options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FR FreeIPA Integrated identity management for Linux and Unix environments VS OR Ory Kratos Headless identity and user management API server
FeatureFreeIPAOry Kratos
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguagePythonGo
Setup difficultyHardHard
Min. RAM2,048 MB256 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, sourcedocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 1,252★ 13,815
First released20082020
ReplacesActive DirectoryAuth0, Firebase Auth

Why pick each one

Choose FreeIPA if…

  • All-in-one identity stack
  • Strong Linux integration
FreeIPA details

Choose Ory Kratos if…

  • Extremely flexible architecture
  • Excellent for custom frontends
Ory Kratos details

Frequently asked questions

Is FreeIPA or Ory Kratos better?

Neither is universally better. Ory Kratos has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are FreeIPA and Ory Kratos free and open-source?

Yes. FreeIPA is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Ory Kratos under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run FreeIPA and Ory Kratos with Docker?

FreeIPA: check the project docs for container support. Ory Kratos: yes.

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