node-oidc-provider 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?
Featurenode-oidc-providerOry Hydra
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseMITApache-2.0
LanguageJavaScriptGo
Setup difficultyHardHard
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentsource, dockerdocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 3,788★ 17,462
First released20162015
ReplacesAuth0, OktaOkta, Auth0

Why pick each one

Choose node-oidc-provider if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (3.8k GitHub stars)
  • Written in JavaScript
node-oidc-provider details

Choose Ory Hydra if…

  • Security focused and certified
  • Integrates with any user store
Ory Hydra details

Frequently asked questions

Is node-oidc-provider or Ory Hydra better?

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

Are node-oidc-provider and Ory Hydra free and open-source?

Yes. node-oidc-provider is licensed under MIT and Ory Hydra under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run node-oidc-provider and Ory Hydra with Docker?

node-oidc-provider: yes. Ory Hydra: yes.

Related comparisons