You've got the idea, now it's time to build it. When it comes to user login and digital identity, it's tempting to build your own auth solution. But if you choose to buy rather than build, there are a lot of options on the market.
Why Find a Keycloak Alternative?
Keycloak gained popularity in large part because of its open-source license, and because it's free to use. It does support a wide range of features, such a multi-factor authentication, M2M, single sign-on, and social login. But developers are looking for alternatives that are more feature-rich, have even more hosting flexibility, and platforms that have true support.
Table of Contents
The Top 8 Keycloak Alternatives
We've talked about what Keycloak provides. But in the world of CIAM, these are table stakes. Nearly every user login platform offers SSO, MFA, and more. What sets providers apart these days is less about the features, and more about the associated costs. It's common for CIAM providers to charge per identity provider (IdP), to only allow a minuscule amount of monthly active users (MAUs), or to empty your wallet with shared hosting costs.
When we compare CIAM providers, we focus on a few specific areas:
- Pricing
- Setup time
- Customization
- Migration options
- Key features or Use cases
Those are the factors that this guide will focus on. In this guide, we'll give a quick overview of each service. But we'll also call out how much they cost, their setup times, and what it takes to get them running. It's also important to note whether a provider has had issues or significant business changes. For instance, the Okta security incident in 2023, or Forgerock's acquisition by Ping Identity.
FusionAuth
FusionAuth is a complete auth and user platform that has over 10 million downloads, and it's the name that industry leaders trust. Hosting flexibility is one area that sets FusionAuth ahead of the competition. You can self-host (even air-gapped!) or opt for FusionAuth cloud. Whichever choice you make you keep the same set of features.
- Pricing: Free for the Community plan, which includes passkeys after version 1.52.0 if you choose to register a license. Paid plans start at $125 per month for self-hosted options up to 10,000 users. Cloud hosting starts at $37 per month.
- Setup Time: As little as five minutes.
- Customization: FusionAuth offers a back-end GUI and API-based customization. You can create themes and assign them per tenant or application.
- Migration: FusionAuth's documentation covers many migration methods and data sources, supporting any password hashing scheme.
- Hosting: Self-hosted or single-tenant cloud.
- Get Started: Contact us for your custom quote, or buy your solution online.
Key Features: Developer-focused, support from actual engineers, private cloud hosting, lower overall cost.
Forgerock
ForgeRock is an identity and access management (IAM) platform that aims to provide organizations with features for managing digital identities, securing application access, and handling user privacy and consent. However, it comes with several notable drawbacks that potential users should carefully consider:
- Pricing: Implementation costs can be substantial, typically around $20,000, with ongoing costs of about $8,000 per month for a global enterprise.
- Setup Time: The complexity of the platform often leads to prolonged implementation periods, especially for organizations with intricate IAM requirements.
- Customization: ForgeRock advertises a high level of customization, including UI customization and support for various authentication methods, as long as you have the technical expertise to use them.
- Migration: The lack of simplified documentation within the tool itself necessitates the use of a separate portal, adding to the complexity.
- Hosting: ForgeRock is available as both on-premises and cloud solutions, but managing either option can be resource-intensive and may require specialized skills.
Key Features: ForgeRock offers a range of IAM features including SSO, MFA, identity federation, and user self-service. However, some users report that certain functionalities, such as reporting capabilities, are lacking compared to competitors.
Cognito
Cognito is part of Amazon's AWS. For those who host on AWS, that tends to be a draw. It supports social sign-in, enterprise providers via SAML, and Amazon touts Cognito's ability to scale.
- Pricing: The system is free to start but uses a complex pricing matrix based on Monthly Active Users (MAUs), which can be confusing and potentially expensive for larger user bases.
- Setup Time: While Cognito offers a setup wizard, the process can become complicated, especially for native apps, leading to a longer setup time than initially anticipated.
- Customization: Cognito supports minimal customization of UIs, workflows, and data synchronization tasks. Customizing user pool workflows requires AWS Lambda triggers, which can be complex and resource-intensive.
- Migration: Migration can be challenging and time-consuming, with limited support and documentation, often necessitating additional resources.
- Hosting: Multi-tenant only.
Key Features: Although Cognito integrates well with other AWS services, it has limitations such as fixed access token expiration times, rigid user pool configurations, and inadequate documentation, which can hinder its usability for complex applications.
Firebase
Owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Firebase is a big set of tools that does a lot of things. It's an app development platform that also has authentication and authorization tools. While handy, that alone is cause enough for concern for some folks. That's before we have the uncomfortable conversation around Google's tendency toward killing off its own products.
- Pricing: Free for up to 50k monthly users. Paid plans start at $25 per month, but the pricing can escalate quickly with increased usage.
- Setup Time: Setup can vary significantly based on the platform and services used, often requiring more time than expected due to the need to integrate various Firebase services.
- Customization: While Firebase supports some customization, it is limited compared to other providers. Customizing workflows and UIs often requires additional coding and integration efforts.
- Migration: Firebase offers limited information on migrating from other providers, which can complicate the transition process.
- Hosting: Multi-tenant only.
Key Features: Google is relying on having a wide variety of developer-focused tools. These include performance monitors, analytics, A/B testing, and much more. Be aware that platforms with a lot of tools don't often do each one individually well.
FrontEgg
Frontegg offers a solid product. Like most other auth providers, it has robust user management. That said, it's focused almost entirely on B2B SaaS applications. A somewhat fresh round of funding puts the company in a position where it may have to raise prices to meet investor demands for a ROI.
- Pricing: Starts at $99 per month for up to 1,000 users, which may become costly as usage scales.
- Setup Time: While Frontegg claims readiness in hours, real-world deployments may take longer with complex integrations.
- Customization: Custom styling and admin portal modules are available, but these options could require additional resources and technical expertise, which smaller companies might lack.
- Migration: Supports imports of Bcrypt, Scrypt, and Firebase hashed passwords, but the documentation on this process is not always straightforward, potentially leading to challenges during migration.
- Hosting: Multi-tenant only.
Key Features: Built for B2B SaaS and rising in popularity, but as always, users should weigh the potential complexities and costs against their specific needs.
Stytch
Stytch focuses its offerings on APIs and SDKs, like most other vendors. The company talks about working with frontend, headless, and backend API SDKs.
- Pricing: Free to start for up to 5k MAUs, but removing branding and enabling customization costs $249 per month.
- Setup Time: Due to the extensive setup options, the process can take longer than with other providers,.
- Customization: While APIs and SDKs allow for custom experiences, these are only available for paid plans, which might limit flexibility for users on the free tier.
- Migration: Stytch provides documentation for migrating from major auth providers like Auth0, Cognito, and Firebase.
- Hosting: Multi-tenant only, which might not meet the data isolation requirements of some organizations.
Key Features: Although Stytch is built with startups in mind and offers branding control and a "four nines" SLA for Enterprise customers, some users report that the extensive customization options can be overwhelming and the dependency on Stytch's team for problem-solving can be a drawback. Additionally, the platform's reliance on specific configurations may limit its compatibility with certain use cases.
WorkOS
WorkOS positions itself as a platform to make applications enterprise-ready with minimal code changes. However, potential users should consider several factors:
- Pricing: Starting at $125 per month for a single SSO or Directory Sync connection, which can quickly become expensive for applications requiring multiple integrations.
- Setup Time: While WorkOS claims quick feature addition, the initial setup can be time-consuming due to the variety of options available.
- Customization: Limited customization options are available, primarily focused on admin portal branding. This may not suffice for companies requiring extensive tailoring of their authentication flows.
- Migration: The lack of comprehensive migration support for major auth providers could be a drawback for some users.
- Hosting: Multi-tenant only.
KeyFeatures: The platform's emphasis on enterprise readiness might lead to feature bloat for smaller companies or those not primarily targeting enterprise customers.
Open Source Alternatives to Keycloak
When discussing Keycloak alternatives, it's important to consider open source options, especially for those seeking single-tenant, private cloud hosting solutions. These alternatives often provide flexibility and customization that proprietary solutions may lack.
Here's an overview of some notable open source options:
Authelia: Authelia occupies a unique space in the authentication landscape. Rather than being a standalone SSO provider, it functions as a layer that sits in front of other services with their own authentication systems. This approach can enhance security and provide a unified authentication experience across multiple services.
Authentik: Known for its simplicity and ease of use, Authentik offers full OAuth and SAML support. It's particularly useful for applications that don't natively support SSO. Authentik's focus on user-friendliness makes it an attractive option for those who want robust authentication without excessive complexity.
Hanko: Hanko combines authentication, user management, and biometric capabilities in one platform. It offers a free tier for getting started and scales affordably, with production plans starting at $9 per month. Its biometric features set it apart from many other open source alternatives.
SuperTokens: SuperTokens provides self-hosted login pages with a prebuilt UI, making it easier to implement authentication quickly. While its authentication options may be more limited compared to some alternatives, SuperTokens has gained significant user support, evidenced by its $300 million fund raised by users.
Ory.sh: Ory takes a modular approach to authentication and authorization. Users can add or remove components as needed, providing a high degree of flexibility. This modular structure allows organizations to tailor the authentication solution to their specific requirements.
When considering a Keycloak alternative, it's worth evaluating these options alongside proprietary solutions to find the best fit for your specific needs and technical requirements.
FusionAuth Is the Best Keycloak Alternative
Look, we get it. You're thinking, "Of course they'd say that." But hear us out.
We built FusionAuth for developers, by developers. That means when you've got a question, you're not getting bounced around to some entry-level support desk. You're talking to the folks who built this thing. We're in the trenches with you.
Our team? Senior devs who've been around the block. We've seen it all, built it all, and now we're here to help you do the same.
Let's be real, user login and authentication is a beast. You could build it yourself, sure. But then you're stuck maintaining that monster forever. Why put yourself through that? We've got the expertise, we've got the passion, and we're ready to take that burden off your shoulders.
So here's our invitation to you: Sign up for our Community plan today. Let's build something awesome together.
