SHSelfHostIndex

Pocket ID 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?
PO Pocket ID Simple OIDC provider that uses only passkeys VS ZI ZITADEL Cloud-native identity infrastructure with multi-tenancy built in
FeaturePocket IDZITADEL
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseBSD-2-ClauseApache-2.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentdockerdocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 8,737★ 14,671
First released20242020
ReplacesAuth0, AutheliaAuth0, Okta, Firebase Auth

Why pick each one

Choose Pocket ID if…

  • Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 8.7k GitHub stars
Pocket ID details

Choose ZITADEL if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Pocket ID or ZITADEL better?

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

Are Pocket ID and ZITADEL free and open-source?

Yes. Pocket ID is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and ZITADEL under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Pocket ID and ZITADEL with Docker?

Pocket ID: yes. ZITADEL: yes.

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