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4.  Ory vs Keycloak 

# Ory vs Keycloak

Side-by-side comparison of identity tools. Sponsored placement is disclosed where applicable.

Last updated 3 months ago

Quick answer

## Ory vs Keycloak: which should you choose?

Short answer

Ory vs Keycloak 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

Ory: Engineering teams that want composable, open source identity and authorization primitives, self-hosted or as SaaS. · Keycloak: Organizations that require a fully open source, self-hosted IAM platform with enterprise-grade features and no licensing cost. Strong fit for large enterprises with technical resources to operate it, government agencies with data sovereignty requirements, and universities or research institutions managing complex identity federation.

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

[Ory](/directory/ory)[Keycloak](/directory/keycloak)[IAM Stack Finder](/stack-finder)[Buyer resources](/resources)

Attribute

[Ory](/directory/ory)[](https://www.ory.sh)

[Keycloak](/directory/keycloak)[](https://www.keycloak.org)

Best for

Engineering teams that want composable, open source identity and authorization primitives, self-hosted or as SaaS. 

Organizations that require a fully open source, self-hosted IAM platform with enterprise-grade features and no licensing cost. Strong fit for large enterprises with technical resources to operate it, government agencies with data sovereignty requirements, and universities or research institutions managing complex identity federation. 

Short description

Open source identity, authorization and zero trust stack (Kratos, Hydra, Keto, Oathkeeper) available self-hosted or as Ory Network SaaS. 

Keycloak is the most widely deployed open source IAM platform, providing enterprise-grade SSO, MFA, SAML, OIDC, LDAP, and Kerberos support in a self-hosted, Apache 2.0 licensed package maintained by Red Hat. 

Company size

startup, smb, mid\_market, enterprise 

Mid-market, Enterprise, Government / Education 

Deployment

saas, self\_hosted, hybrid 

Self-hosted 

Source

open source 

Open source (Apache 2.0) 

Pricing model

usage\_based 

Free (open source); Red Hat SSO commercial support available separately 

Integrations

OIDC, OAuth 2.0, SAML, SCIM, Kubernetes 

Active Directory, LDAP, Google, GitHub, Facebook, Kubernetes, Istio, Envoy 

Categories

Customer Identity / CIAM, Developer Authentication 

SSO, MFA / Passwordless, Customer Identity / CIAM, Developer Authentication 

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