SHSelfHostIndex

Ipsilon vs Shibboleth Identity Provider

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?
IP Ipsilon Identity provider for federated single sign-on VS SH Shibboleth Identity Provider Standards-based SAML identity provider for federations
FeatureIpsilonShibboleth Identity Provider
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguagePythonJava
Setup difficultyHardHard
Min. RAM512 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, sourcebare-metal, docker, source
GitHub stars★ 80★ 200
First released20142003
ReplacesOkta, PingFederateOkta, Ping Identity

Why pick each one

Choose Ipsilon if…

  • Good FreeIPA companion
  • Federation focused
Ipsilon details

Choose Shibboleth Identity Provider if…

  • Gold standard for SAML federations
  • Highly configurable
Shibboleth Identity Provider details

Frequently asked questions

Is Ipsilon or Shibboleth Identity Provider better?

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

Are Ipsilon and Shibboleth Identity Provider free and open-source?

Yes. Ipsilon is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Shibboleth Identity Provider under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Ipsilon and Shibboleth Identity Provider with Docker?

Ipsilon: check the project docs for container support. Shibboleth Identity Provider: yes.

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