Authelia vs Zitadel
Side-by-side comparison of identity tools. Sponsored placement is disclosed where applicable.
Quick answer
Authelia vs Zitadel: which should you choose?
Short answer
Authelia vs Zitadel 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. · Zitadel: B2B SaaS teams that want multi-tenant identity with both self-hosted open source and managed cloud options.
- 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
- AutheliaZitadelIAM 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. | B2B SaaS teams that want multi-tenant identity with both self-hosted open source and managed cloud options. |
| 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. | Open source identity and access platform with built-in multi-tenancy, SSO, MFA and a managed Zitadel Cloud SaaS. |
| Company size | startup, smb | startup, smb, mid_market, enterprise |
| Deployment | self_hosted | saas, self_hosted |
| Source | open source | open source |
| Pricing model | free | tiered |
| Integrations | Traefik, NGINX, Caddy, HAProxy, Envoy, SWAG, NGINX Proxy Manager, Skipper | OIDC, OAuth 2.0, SAML, SCIM, LDAP |
| Categories | Workforce IAM, SSO, Developer Authentication | |
| Claimed profile |
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