Open Policy Agent vs Ory Kratos
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?
Open Policy Agent
General-purpose policy engine for cloud-native stacks
VS
Ory Kratos
Headless identity and user management API server
| Feature | Open Policy Agent | Ory Kratos |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Identity & SSO | Identity & SSO |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 12,086 | ★ 13,815 |
| First released | 2016 | 2020 |
| Replaces | AWS IAM policies | Auth0, Firebase Auth |
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
Choose Ory Kratos if…
- Extremely flexible architecture
- Excellent for custom frontends
Frequently asked questions
Is Open Policy Agent or Ory Kratos better?
Neither is universally better. Ory Kratos has the larger community, while Open Policy Agent is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Open Policy Agent and Ory Kratos free and open-source?
Yes. Open Policy Agent is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Ory Kratos under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Open Policy Agent and Ory Kratos with Docker?
Open Policy Agent: yes. Ory Kratos: yes.