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Keycloak

The widely used open-source identity and access management server for SSO across apps.

Open sourceSelf-hostableAuthentication providers
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About Keycloak

Keycloak is a free, open-source identity server originally started at Red Hat and now a Cloud Native Computing Foundation project. You run it yourself, as a container on Docker or Kubernetes or as a plain Java distribution, and point applications at it over OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0 or SAML 2.0. It provides single sign-on and sign-out, a login and account console, social login, identity brokering to other providers, user federation with LDAP and Active Directory, fine-grained authorization services, and an admin console for managing realms, clients and users. Because it is standards-based and mature, it is a common choice inside enterprises, governments and universities, and many commercial products embed it. The cost is operational: you handle databases, upgrades, clustering and theme customisation, and the admin UI and configuration model take time to learn. Commercial support is available through Red Hat's build of Keycloak.

Best for: Organisations that want standards-based SSO on their own infrastructure at no licence cost.

Pros and cons

What works

  • Free and open source under Apache 2.0
  • Supports OIDC, OAuth 2.0 and SAML with LDAP and AD federation
  • Mature, widely deployed and well understood

Why people leave

  • You run, scale and upgrade it yourself
  • Admin concepts and theming have a steep learning curve
  • Login pages look dated without custom themes

Top Keycloak alternatives

See all 6
  1. 1Zitadel logo
    Zitadel

    Modern open-source alternative with a friendlier UI and a managed cloud if you want it.

    66.5
  2. 2authentik logo
    authentik

    Easier to configure, with a built-in application proxy, LDAP and RADIUS.

    62.6
  3. 3FusionAuth logo
    FusionAuth

    Self-hostable server with a cleaner API and optional paid support and hosting.

    59.6
  4. 4Ory logo
    Ory

    Headless, API-first components for teams that want to build their own login UI.

    57.2
  5. 5Casdoor logo
    Casdoor

    Lightweight open-source IAM with a simple web UI and many identity providers.

    55.3

Why people left Keycloak

In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.

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Keycloak: common questions

Is Keycloak free?

Yes. Keycloak is free, open-source software that you can host yourself.

Is Keycloak open source?

Yes. The source code is on GitHub at keycloak/keycloak. You can also run it on your own server.

What platforms does Keycloak run on?

Keycloak is available for Self-hosted, Linux, macOS and Windows.

What are the best alternatives to Keycloak?

The highest-ranked Keycloak alternatives right now are Zitadel, authentik and FusionAuth. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 6 Keycloak alternatives