SHSelfHostIndex

GLAuth vs ZITADEL

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?
GL GLAuth Lightweight LDAP server for developers and small setups VS ZI ZITADEL Cloud-native identity infrastructure with multi-tenancy built in
FeatureGLAuthZITADEL
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseMITApache-2.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM64 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 2,834★ 14,671
First released20172020
ReplacesMicrosoft Active Directory, OpenLDAPAuth0, Okta, Firebase Auth

Why pick each one

Choose GLAuth if…

  • Very simple to run
  • Great for homelabs
GLAuth details

Choose ZITADEL if…

  • Strong multi-tenant model
  • Modern Go codebase
ZITADEL details

Frequently asked questions

Is GLAuth or ZITADEL better?

Neither is universally better. ZITADEL has the larger community, while GLAuth is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are GLAuth and ZITADEL free and open-source?

Yes. GLAuth is licensed under MIT and ZITADEL under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run GLAuth and ZITADEL with Docker?

GLAuth: yes. ZITADEL: yes.

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