Keycloak vs Supabase Auth
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted identity & sso options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Keycloak
Open-source identity and access management for modern apps
VS
Supabase Auth
Small JWT-based user authentication API service
| Feature | Keycloak | Supabase Auth |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 99 · Excellent | 87 · Excellent |
| Category | Identity & SSO | Identity & SSO |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Java | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 36,967 | ★ 2,569 |
| First released | 2014 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Okta, Auth0, Microsoft Entra ID | Auth0 |
What are Keycloak and Supabase Auth?
Keycloak
Keycloak is an enterprise-grade identity and access management solution backed by Red Hat. It provides single sign-on, identity brokering, social login and fine-grained authorization for applications and services.
- SSO with OpenID Connect and SAML 2.0
- Identity brokering and social login
- User federation with LDAP and Active Directory
- Fine-grained authorization services
Supabase Auth
GoTrue is a lightweight JSON Web Token based authentication API for managing users and sessions, originally from Netlify and extended by Supabase. It is self-hosted as a small Go service.
- JWT-based auth API
- Email and OAuth login
- Lightweight Go service
- Self-hostable
Keycloak vs Supabase Auth: key differences
Keycloak is written in Java, while Supabase Auth is built with Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Keycloak versus MIT for Supabase Auth. Supabase Auth is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Keycloak. Keycloak is the more established project (first released 2014), while Supabase Auth arrived in 2017. Keycloak has the considerably larger community, at 36,967 GitHub stars versus 2,569.
Why pick each one
Choose Keycloak if…
- Mature and battle-tested
- Strong enterprise feature set
Watch out for
- Steep learning curve
- Resource intensive
Choose Supabase Auth if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Keycloak or Supabase Auth better?
Neither is universally better. Keycloak has the larger community, while Supabase Auth is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Keycloak and Supabase Auth free and open-source?
Yes. Keycloak is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Supabase Auth under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Keycloak and Supabase Auth with Docker?
Keycloak: yes. Supabase Auth: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Keycloak or Supabase Auth?
Supabase Auth has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Keycloak. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.