Keycloak vs LemonLDAP::NG

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?
FeatureKeycloakLemonLDAP::NG
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseApache-2.0GPL-2.0
LanguageJavaPerl
Setup difficultyHardHard
Min. RAM1,024 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, bare-metaldocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 36,058★ 84
First released20142005
ReplacesOkta, Auth0, Microsoft Entra IDOkta, PingFederate

Why pick each one

Choose Keycloak if…

  • Mature and battle-tested
  • Strong enterprise feature set
Keycloak details

Choose LemonLDAP::NG if…

  • Mature and full-featured
  • Many protocol options
LemonLDAP::NG details

Frequently asked questions

Is Keycloak or LemonLDAP::NG better?

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

Are Keycloak and LemonLDAP::NG free and open-source?

Yes. Keycloak is licensed under Apache-2.0 and LemonLDAP::NG under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Keycloak and LemonLDAP::NG with Docker?

Keycloak: yes. LemonLDAP::NG: yes.

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