SHSelfHostIndex

Open Policy Agent vs Ory Keto

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?
OP Open Policy Agent General-purpose policy engine for cloud-native stacks VS OR Ory Keto Permission and authorization server based on Zanzibar
FeatureOpen Policy AgentOry Keto
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, binarydocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 12,086★ 5,383
First released20162018
ReplacesAWS IAM policiesAuth0 FGA, OpenFGA

Why pick each one

Choose Open Policy Agent if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
  • Mature project with 12.1k GitHub stars
Open Policy Agent details

Choose Ory Keto if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
  • Mature project with 5.4k GitHub stars
Ory Keto details

Frequently asked questions

Is Open Policy Agent or Ory Keto better?

Neither is universally better. Open Policy Agent has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Open Policy Agent and Ory Keto free and open-source?

Yes. Open Policy Agent is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Ory Keto under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Open Policy Agent and Ory Keto with Docker?

Open Policy Agent: yes. Ory Keto: yes.

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