SHSelfHostIndex

Open Policy Agent vs SimpleSAMLphp

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 SI SimpleSAMLphp PHP implementation of SAML and identity federation
FeatureOpen Policy AgentSimpleSAMLphp
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseApache-2.0LGPL-2.1
LanguageGoPHP
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, binarybare-metal, source, docker
GitHub stars★ 12,086★ 1,139
First released20162007
ReplacesAWS IAM policiesOkta, PingFederate

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 SimpleSAMLphp if…

  • Proven and widely deployed
  • Flexible modules
SimpleSAMLphp details

Frequently asked questions

Is Open Policy Agent or SimpleSAMLphp 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 SimpleSAMLphp free and open-source?

Yes. Open Policy Agent is licensed under Apache-2.0 and SimpleSAMLphp under LGPL-2.1. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Open Policy Agent and SimpleSAMLphp with Docker?

Open Policy Agent: yes. SimpleSAMLphp: yes.

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