As organizations continue to embrace digital transformation, securing access to applications and managing user identities has become more important than ever. Commercial identity and access management (IAM) solutions like Okta offer robust features but often come with a high price tag. This leads many businesses—particularly startups, non-profits, and tech-savvy enterprises—to explore open-source alternatives that provide similar functionality with greater flexibility and no licensing fees.
Okta is widely known for enabling single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and user provisioning across cloud and on-premise environments. While it excels in usability and integrations, it may not be the ideal choice for every use case. Fortunately, several open-source IAM platforms can serve as viable replacements and are actively maintained by strong developer communities.
Leading Open-Source Alternatives to Okta
Below are some of the most reliable open-source IAM solutions that developers and enterprises are utilizing:
- Keycloak
- Authelia
- Authentik
- Gluu
- ORY Hydra and ORY Kratos
Keycloak
Keycloak, backed by Red Hat, is one of the most widely adopted open-source IAM solutions. It supports SSO, MFA, user federation, LDAP integration, and even social login options like Facebook and Google. One of Keycloak’s major strengths is its ease of setup and extensive REST API that allows developers to customize it for nearly any environment.
With native support for standard protocols such as OAuth2, OpenID Connect (OIDC), and SAML, Keycloak can be deployed within enterprise environments, microservice architectures, and even Kubernetes-native setups.
Authelia
Authelia is a modern open-source authentication and authorization server built with security-first principles. It acts as a reverse proxy, providing MFA, access control policies, and identity verification for web applications. It is ideal for self-hosted environments and integrates well with NGINX, Traefik, and other popular reverse proxies.
While Authelia is lightweight and relatively simple to deploy, it may lack some of the admin-facing features provided by more comprehensive platforms. However, its focus on secure access makes it a worthwhile option for internal tool access or home-lab developers.
Authentik
Authentik is a newer open-source IAM system aiming to combine ease of use with enterprise-grade security. It offers the typical suite of SSO, OIDC, LDAP sync, and MFA, but stands out with a sleek user interface and built-in dashboards for monitoring and management.
One of Authentik’s defining features is its approachability for small to mid-sized teams who prefer minimal setup without compromising on security or integration capabilities.
Gluu
Gluu is another highly customizable and mature open-source IAM platform. It supports SAML, OAuth 2.0, UMA, and LDAP, and provides fine-grained control over authentication workflows. Gluu is particularly well-suited to large organizations with complex compliance or regulatory needs.
Although powerful, Gluu’s extensive configuration options can make setup more complex compared to other options on this list. However, for those needing deep control over access policies and federation, Gluu’s offering is unmatched.
ORY Suite (Hydra & Kratos)
The ORY suite consists of several tools designed to give you total control over identity and authorization. The most relevant projects for IAM purposes are:
- ORY Kratos: A user management system including features like registration, login, and password recovery
- ORY Hydra: An OAuth2 and OIDC server that’s highly scalable
ORY is particularly attractive for developers looking to embed IAM functionality within an existing microservices architecture. Due to its modular nature, however, deploying ORY can require a deeper understanding of authentication protocols and development pipelines.
Conclusion
While Okta continues to dominate much of the commercial IAM landscape, there are credible and robust open-source alternatives for organizations with the resources to implement and maintain them. Depending on your use case—whether you prioritize ease of deployment, extensibility, or regulatory compliance—solutions like Keycloak, Authentik, and Authelia can serve as capable stand-ins or even superior alternatives in some scenarios.
Adopting an open-source IAM solution allows for greater flexibility, cost savings, and control over security features, making it a compelling option for modern, security-conscious organizations.