Cerbos vs Zitadel

Zitadel significantly outpaces Cerbos in community adoption with 14,965 stars compared to 4,578 stars on GitHub. This 3.3x difference suggests Zitadel has a much larger and more active community. In terms of developer contributions, Zitadel has 1,286 forks, indicating strong developer engagement.

Zitadel is growing faster, adding 278 stars in the last 30 days (+1.9%) against adding 46 stars for Cerbos (+1%). Zitadel is both larger and pulling further ahead.

Both projects show recent activity, with Cerbos last updated 12 hours ago and Zitadel 17 hours ago.

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

Zitadel has been in development longer, starting 6 years ago, compared to Cerbos which began 5 years ago. This 1.0-year head start suggests Zitadel may have more mature features and established processes.

The projects use different licenses: Cerbos 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 Authorization & Permissions. However, they also have distinct specializations: Cerbos also focuses on Application Security while Zitadel extends into Authentication & SSO.

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