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Open Source Cerbos Alternatives

A curated collection of the 6 best open source alternatives to Cerbos.

The best open source alternative to Cerbos is Keycloak. If that doesn't suit you, we've compiled a ranked list of other open source Cerbos alternatives to help you find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Cerbos are: Authentik, Zitadel, Ory, and Hexclave.

Cerbos alternatives are mainly Authorization & Permissions Tools but may also be Authentication & SSO Providers. Browse these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Cerbos.

Piotr Kulpinski's profile

Written by Piotr Kulpinski

Comprehensive open source identity management solution offering single sign-on, social login, and fine-grained authorization for applications and services.

Screenshot of Keycloak website

Keycloak simplifies application security by providing a complete identity and access management solution. With built-in single sign-on (SSO), users authenticate once to access multiple applications, eliminating repetitive logins and logouts.

The platform offers robust identity features including:

  • Social login integration with popular providers
  • LDAP and Active Directory federation
  • OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, and SAML 2.0 protocol support
  • Fine-grained authorization policies
  • Two-factor authentication
  • User account management

Administrators benefit from a centralized console to manage users, configure authentication flows, and set security policies. Users get a self-service portal to manage their profiles, passwords, and linked accounts.

Enterprise-ready capabilities include high performance, clustering support for scalability, customizable themes, and extensive APIs for integration. As a Cloud Native Computing Foundation project, Keycloak maintains high standards for security, reliability, and community-driven development.

authentik is an open-source identity provider that offers self-hosted authentication, authorization, and user management for businesses of all sizes.

Screenshot of Authentik website

authentik is a powerful, open-source identity and access management solution designed to give organizations full control over their authentication and authorization needs. Here's why authentik stands out:

  1. Self-hosted and Open Source:

    • Deploy anywhere, maintaining complete control over your sensitive data
    • Continuously reviewed by community experts, ensuring transparency and security
  2. Flexible and Customizable:

    • Pre-built workflows for quick setup
    • Fully customizable authentication steps through configurable templates
    • Comprehensive APIs for advanced automation
  3. Enterprise-Grade Features:

    • Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
    • Conditional access
    • Application proxy
    • Support for multiple protocols (SAML2, OAuth2, OIDC, SCIM, LDAP, RADIUS)
  4. Scalable and Easy to Deploy:

    • Supports Kubernetes, Terraform, and Docker Compose
    • Designed for both B2B and B2C use cases
  5. Comprehensive Identity Solution:

    • Authentication
    • User enrollment
    • Self-service capabilities
  6. Cost-Effective:

    • Streamlined pricing with no hidden costs
    • Core functionality included without extra charges

authentik empowers organizations to prioritize security, simplify deployment, and automate identity workflows. Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise, authentik provides the tools and flexibility to meet your specific identity and access management needs.

ZITADEL provides a comprehensive identity management solution with easy APIs, customizable workflows, and serverless deployment options.

Screenshot of Zitadel website

ZITADEL is an all-in-one identity suite designed to streamline application development with robust authentication and authorization capabilities.

Key features:

  • Customizable hosted login: Easily authenticate users with a branded, customizable login page
  • Modern authentication methods: Support for SSO, social logins, and multi-factor authentication
  • Role-based access control: Assign permissions based on user roles for granular authorization
  • Multi-tenant architecture: Built-in support for B2B scenarios with organization management
  • Extensibility: Customize workflows and integrate ZITADEL into existing systems with Actions
  • Developer-friendly: Modern APIs (gRPC and REST) with comprehensive documentation
  • Flexible deployment: Run ZITADEL as a managed service or self-host for full control

ZITADEL empowers developers to offload complex identity tasks while maintaining adaptability. With security defaults and custom code extensions, it provides a solid foundation for building scalable applications with sophisticated user management.

Whether you need authentication for a small project or enterprise-grade identity infrastructure, ZITADEL offers the flexibility to grow with your needs. Focus on building your core product features while ZITADEL handles the intricacies of identity management.

Ory is a certified and battle-tested identity solution backed by a large open source community and trusted by Fortune 500 companies.

Screenshot of Ory website

Ory provides a modern and modular approach to identity and access management (IAM) that scales, offers unmatched user experience and deployment flexibility, and only charges for what is used.

Key benefits of Ory include:

  • Uninterrupted performance even under demanding conditions, ensuring no revenue loss during peak demand
  • Comprehensive visibility and fully configurable options to balance user experience, privacy and security
  • Unmatched flexibility for customization beyond just branding, including UI, workflows, standards, deployment, scale and security
  • Integrations and SDKs for all modern and legacy frameworks
  • Migration guides to easily move from home-grown or other IAM solutions
  • Trusted by over 30,000 companies, from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises
  • Available as open source, self-hosted, or fully managed cloud offering

Ory allows you to build a unified identity system that meets all your needs, whether you're looking for authentication, authorization, user management, or a complete IAM platform. With options for self-hosting or using the managed Ory Network, you can get started quickly and scale seamlessly as your needs grow.

Self-hostable platform combining user auth, payments, email, and analytics into modular building blocks that fit around your existing product.

Screenshot of Hexclave website

Hexclave is a self-hostable, open-source platform that bundles the core infrastructure most products need to manage users: authentication, payments, email, and analytics. Instead of stitching together four separate services, you get a single cohesive system where each piece is modular enough to use independently or together.

It's built for product teams that want ownership over their user data without managing a sprawl of third-party vendors. Because it's open source and backed by Y Combinator, it sits in a space between fully managed SaaS tools and roll-your-own solutions.

The core building blocks cover:

  • Auth – user sign-up, login, and session management built in, so you're not wiring up a separate identity provider
  • Payments – billing and subscription logic as part of the same platform rather than a disconnected integration
  • Emails – transactional and product emails handled natively, keeping user communication tied to user data
  • Analytics – signals and usage tracking without shipping data off to a third-party analytics service

The "hexclave" name references hexagonal grid packing, the tightest possible arrangement of any shape. That geometry is the design philosophy: modules that fit together without wasted space or overlap.

For teams building SaaS products or any user-facing application, Hexclave reduces the number of vendors you depend on while keeping the flexibility to swap or extend individual pieces. Self-hosting means your user data stays on your infrastructure.

Open-source authorization service for implementing fine-grained access controls. Centralized, scalable solution supporting RBAC, ABAC and ReBAC with Google Zanzibar-inspired architecture.

Screenshot of Permify website

Centralized authorization service that transforms how you implement access controls across your applications. Instead of embedding authorization logic in your codebase, Permify provides a dedicated service that handles all permission checks and policy management.

Key capabilities include:

  • Fine-grained permissions supporting RBAC, ABAC, and ReBAC models
  • Flexible authorization language for building granular policies without steep learning curves
  • Real-time data synchronization for dynamic access checks across your entire stack
  • Permission database inspired by Google Zanzibar for blazing fast response times
  • Comprehensive APIs for access checks, data filtering, and permission management

The platform centralizes permission data as structured relationships, enabling efficient management of large data volumes while maintaining consistent authorization policies across multiple applications. This approach eliminates development bottlenecks and allows teams to test, debug, and iterate authorization logic independently from application code.

Built for scalability, Permify handles complex permission scenarios while providing the performance needed for enterprise applications. The service integrates seamlessly with existing systems through well-documented APIs and supports various authentication patterns.

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