SHSelfHostIndex

FreeRADIUS 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?
FR FreeRADIUS High-performance open-source RADIUS server VS ZI ZITADEL Cloud-native identity infrastructure with multi-tenancy built in
FeatureFreeRADIUSZITADEL
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseGPL-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageCGo
Setup difficultyHardMedium
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, source, dockerdocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 2,569★ 14,671
First released19992020
ReplacesCisco ISEAuth0, Okta, Firebase Auth

Why pick each one

Choose FreeRADIUS if…

  • Industry standard
  • Extremely flexible
FreeRADIUS details

Choose ZITADEL if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is FreeRADIUS or ZITADEL better?

ZITADEL is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider FreeRADIUS if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are FreeRADIUS and ZITADEL free and open-source?

Yes. FreeRADIUS is licensed under GPL-2.0 and ZITADEL under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run FreeRADIUS and ZITADEL with Docker?

FreeRADIUS: yes. ZITADEL: yes.

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