Keycloak vs Ory Hydra
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?
Compare Keycloak with
choose an app… Authelia authentik Casbin SuperTokens ZITADEL Logto Casdoor Ory Kratos Open Policy Agent Apereo CAS Dex Hanko Pocket ID step-ca SpiceDB LLDAP Permify OpenFGA Ory Keto Kanidm Cerbos 2FAuth Boundary node-oidc-provider Ory Oathkeeper Vouch Proxy Buzzfeed sso GLAuth Keywhiz FreeRADIUS Supabase Auth Traefik Forward Auth SAML Jackson Caddy Security Authorizer Authgear privacyIDEA Topaz Warrant Rauthy FreeIPA SimpleSAMLphp Samba Active Directory DC Zentral WSO2 Identity Server Janssen Project midPoint LDAP Account Manager OpenLDAP Apache Syncope Univention Corporate Server FusionAuth Shibboleth Identity Provider OpenUnison ZITADEL Login UI LemonLDAP::NG Ipsilon Gluu Flex Hello Identity Coop
Compare Ory Hydra with
choose an app… Authelia authentik Casbin SuperTokens ZITADEL Logto Casdoor Ory Kratos Open Policy Agent Apereo CAS Dex Hanko Pocket ID step-ca SpiceDB LLDAP Permify OpenFGA Ory Keto Kanidm Cerbos 2FAuth Boundary node-oidc-provider Ory Oathkeeper Vouch Proxy Buzzfeed sso GLAuth Keywhiz FreeRADIUS Supabase Auth Traefik Forward Auth SAML Jackson Caddy Security Authorizer Authgear privacyIDEA Topaz Warrant Rauthy FreeIPA SimpleSAMLphp Samba Active Directory DC Zentral WSO2 Identity Server Janssen Project midPoint LDAP Account Manager OpenLDAP Apache Syncope Univention Corporate Server FusionAuth Shibboleth Identity Provider OpenUnison ZITADEL Login UI LemonLDAP::NG Ipsilon Gluu Flex Hello Identity Coop
Feature Keycloak Ory Hydra Category Identity & SSO Identity & SSO License Apache-2.0 Apache-2.0 Language Java Go Setup difficulty Hard Hard Min. RAM 1,024 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, kubernetes, bare-metal docker, kubernetes, binary GitHub stars ★ 36,058 ★ 17,462 First released 2014 2015 Replaces Okta, Auth0, Microsoft Entra ID Okta, Auth0
Why pick each one
Choose Keycloak if… Mature and battle-tested Strong enterprise feature set Keycloak details Choose Ory Hydra if… Security focused and certified Integrates with any user store Ory Hydra details
Frequently asked questions Is Keycloak or Ory Hydra 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 Ory Hydra free and open-source? Yes. Keycloak is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Ory Hydra under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Keycloak and Ory Hydra with Docker? Keycloak: yes. Ory Hydra: yes.