SHSelfHostIndex

Keycloak vs LLDAP

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?
KE Keycloak Open-source identity and access management for modern apps VS LL LLDAP Lightweight LDAP server with a simple web interface
FeatureKeycloakLLDAP
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseApache-2.0GPL-3.0
LanguageJavaRust
Setup difficultyHardEasy
Min. RAM1,024 MB64 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, bare-metaldocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 36,058★ 6,421
First released20142021
ReplacesOkta, Auth0, Microsoft Entra IDActive Directory, OpenLDAP

Why pick each one

Choose Keycloak if…

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

Choose LLDAP if…

  • Very easy to deploy
  • Lightweight Rust binary
LLDAP details

Frequently asked questions

Is Keycloak or LLDAP better?

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

Are Keycloak and LLDAP free and open-source?

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

Can I run Keycloak and LLDAP with Docker?

Keycloak: yes. LLDAP: yes.

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