Rauthy vs ZITADEL
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted identity & sso options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Rauthy
Lightweight OpenID Connect provider written in Rust
VS
ZITADEL
Cloud-native identity infrastructure with multi-tenancy built
| Feature | Rauthy | ZITADEL |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 84 · Excellent | 95 · Excellent |
| Category | Identity & SSO | Identity & SSO |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,339 | ★ 15,083 |
| First released | 2023 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Keycloak, Auth0 | Auth0, Okta, Firebase Auth |
What are Rauthy and ZITADEL?
Rauthy
Rauthy is an open-source, security-focused OpenID Connect provider and single sign-on solution written in Rust. It is designed to be lightweight and fully self-hosted with minimal resource usage.
- Lightweight OIDC provider
- Passkey support
- Low memory footprint
- Single binary option
ZITADEL
ZITADEL is an open-source identity and access management platform built for multi-tenant applications. It offers OpenID Connect, OAuth2, SAML, passwordless login and a powerful management API.
- Multi-tenancy as a first-class concept
- Passwordless and FIDO2 authentication
- Event-sourced audit trail
- Comprehensive gRPC and REST APIs
Rauthy vs ZITADEL: key differences
Rauthy is written in Rust, while ZITADEL is built with Go. Rauthy is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for ZITADEL. ZITADEL is the more established project (first released 2020), while Rauthy arrived in 2023. ZITADEL has the considerably larger community, at 15,083 GitHub stars versus 1,339.
Why pick each one
Choose Rauthy if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
Choose ZITADEL if…
- Strong multi-tenant model
- Modern Go codebase
Watch out for
- Smaller community than Keycloak
Frequently asked questions
Is Rauthy or ZITADEL better?
Neither is universally better. ZITADEL has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Rauthy and ZITADEL free and open-source?
Yes. Rauthy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ZITADEL under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Rauthy and ZITADEL with Docker?
Rauthy: yes. ZITADEL: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Rauthy or ZITADEL?
Rauthy has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for ZITADEL. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.