Zitadel significantly outpaces Authgear in community adoption with 14,700 stars compared to 1,965 stars on GitHub. This 7.5x difference suggests Zitadel has a much larger and more active community. In terms of developer contributions, Zitadel has 1,217 forks, indicating strong developer engagement.

Authgear is growing faster, adding 75 stars in the last 30 days (+4%) against adding 309 stars for Zitadel (+2.1%). Authgear is the smaller project of the two, so it is closing the gap rather than extending a lead.

Both projects show recent activity, with Authgear last updated 5 days ago and Zitadel 3 hours ago.

Both tools share common technology foundations, being built with JavaScript, CSS, Bash, Typescript, JSX, Golang. However, they differ in their additional technology choices: Authgear uses Python while Zitadel leverages Next.js, SCSS, Lua.

Both projects started around the same time, with Authgear beginning 6 years ago and Zitadel 6 years ago.

The projects use different licenses: Authgear is licensed under Apache-2.0 while Zitadel uses AGPL-3.0. Consider the licensing requirements when choosing for your project.

Both tools serve similar use cases in Authentication & SSO. However, they also have distinct specializations: Authgear also focuses on Identity & Access Management (IAM) while Zitadel extends into Authorization & Permissions.

Both Authgear and Zitadel offer self-hosting capabilities, giving you full control over your data and infrastructure.