What is the main difference between Cerbos and Keycloak?

Cerbos and Keycloak are both authorization & permissions tools but differ in their approach, features, and target audience. Compare their GitHub stats, technology stack, and community adoption to make the best choice.

Which is better: Cerbos or Keycloak?

The choice between Cerbos and Keycloak depends on your specific needs, technical requirements, and team preferences. Both are quality open source solutions with active communities.

Can I migrate from Cerbos to Keycloak?

Migration between Cerbos and Keycloak is possible but requires careful planning. Consider data export/import capabilities, feature parity, and potential workflow changes.

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Cerbos vs Keycloak

Learn how Cerbos and Keycloak differ in their key features, development activity, technology stack and community adoption, so you can decide which of these authorization & permissions tools is best for you.

Cerbos

A scalable authorization layer that provides fine-grained access control through externalized policies, enabling secure and flexible permissions management.

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Stars
4,377
Forks
179
Last commit
1 day ago
Repository age
5 years
License
Apache-2.0

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Keycloak

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

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Stars
34,155
Forks
8,298
Last commit
7 hours ago
Repository age
13 years
License
Apache-2.0

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Auto-fetched 3 hours ago.

Detailed Comparison

Keycloak appears to have several advantages over Cerbos, particularly in popularity and maturity. Consider your specific needs regarding popularity, activity, technology, maturity, licensing and features when making your decision.

Keycloak wins

Community & Popularity

Keycloak significantly outpaces Cerbos in community adoption with 34,155 stars compared to 4,377 stars on GitHub. This 7.8x difference suggests Keycloak has a much larger and more active community. In terms of developer contributions, Keycloak has 8,298 forks, indicating strong developer engagement.

Comparable

Development Activity

Both projects show recent activity, with Cerbos last updated 1 day ago and Keycloak 7 hours ago.

Comparable

Technology Stack

Both tools share common technology foundations, being built with JavaScript, CSS, Bash, Python, Java. However, they differ in their additional technology choices: Cerbos uses Golang, Rust, PHP, Ruby, C# while Keycloak leverages Typescript, JSX, C.

Keycloak wins

Project Maturity

Keycloak has been in development longer, starting 13 years ago, compared to Cerbos which began 5 years ago. This 7.8-year head start suggests Keycloak may have more mature features and established processes.

Comparable

Licensing

Both projects use the Apache-2.0 license, providing identical terms for usage and distribution.

Comparable

Use Cases & Features

Both tools serve similar use cases in Authorization & Permissions. However, they also have distinct specializations: Cerbos also focuses on Application Security while Keycloak extends into Authentication & SSO.