Authelia vs FusionAuth
Side-by-side comparison of identity tools. Sponsored placement is disclosed where applicable.
Quick answer
Authelia vs FusionAuth: which should you choose?
Short answer
Authelia vs FusionAuth have overlapping use cases in identity and access management. The right pick depends on your company size, deployment model, integrations, and pricing tolerance — compare those attributes side-by-side below.
- Best for
- Authelia: Self-hosters, homelabs and small platform teams that want free SSO and 2FA in front of web apps behind an existing reverse proxy. · FusionAuth: Organizations that want deployment flexibility (self-hosted option), comprehensive authentication features without MAU-based pricing at scale, and a developer-friendly API. Particularly relevant for companies in regulated industries with data residency requirements, gaming companies with large user bases, or teams that prefer open source-adjacent infrastructure.
- When to choose
- Pick the option whose company-size fit, deployment model, and integrations most closely match your stack.
- When not to choose
- Skip a head-to-head if you haven't shortlisted a category yet — start with the IAM Stack Finder instead.
- Related tools & categories
- AutheliaFusionAuthIAM Stack FinderBuyer resources
| Attribute | ||
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Self-hosters, homelabs and small platform teams that want free SSO and 2FA in front of web apps behind an existing reverse proxy. | Organizations that want deployment flexibility (self-hosted option), comprehensive authentication features without MAU-based pricing at scale, and a developer-friendly API. Particularly relevant for companies in regulated industries with data residency requirements, gaming companies with large user bases, or teams that prefer open source-adjacent infrastructure. |
| Short description | Apache-2.0 open-source authentication and authorization server that adds SSO, two-factor and passkey login and access-control rules in front of applications via reverse proxies, and acts as an OpenID Connect 1.0 provider. | FusionAuth is a comprehensive authentication and user management platform offering flexible deployment (self-hosted, private cloud, or FusionAuth Cloud), developer-friendly APIs, and broad feature coverage including SSO, MFA, SAML, OIDC, and multi-tenancy. |
| Company size | startup, smb | Startup, Mid-market, Enterprise |
| Deployment | self_hosted | Self-hosted, Private Cloud, SaaS / Cloud-hosted (FusionAuth Cloud) |
| Source | open source | Source-available (Community Edition); verify current license at fusionauth.io |
| Pricing model | free | Free for self-hosted Community Edition; cloud and enterprise tiers by deployment/support |
| Integrations | Traefik, NGINX, Caddy, HAProxy, Envoy, SWAG, NGINX Proxy Manager, Skipper | Google, Apple, GitHub, Facebook, LDAP, Active Directory, Salesforce, Twilio |
| Categories | SSO, Customer Identity / CIAM, Developer Authentication, MFA / Passwordless | |
| Claimed profile |
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