SHSelfHostIndex

Keycloak vs ZITADEL

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 ZI ZITADEL Cloud-native identity infrastructure with multi-tenancy built in
FeatureKeycloakZITADEL
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageJavaGo
Setup difficultyHardMedium
Min. RAM1,024 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 36,058★ 14,671
First released20142020
ReplacesOkta, Auth0, Microsoft Entra IDAuth0, Okta, Firebase Auth

Why pick each one

Choose Keycloak if…

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

Choose ZITADEL if…

  • Strong multi-tenant model
  • Modern Go codebase
ZITADEL details

Frequently asked questions

Is Keycloak or ZITADEL better?

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

Are Keycloak and ZITADEL free and open-source?

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

Can I run Keycloak and ZITADEL with Docker?

Keycloak: yes. ZITADEL: yes.

Related comparisons