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Okta vs Authelia

A side-by-side look at Okta (the paid SaaS) and Authelia (the open source alternative). Use this page to decide if the switch fits your team and workflow.

Okta Authelia
Tagline Enterprise identity, SSO and MFA cloud. Single sign-on portal designed for reverse proxies.
License Proprietary SaaS Apache-2.0
Pricing SSO from $2/user/month; MFA, Lifecycle Management tiers climb quickly. Free to self-host
Self-host option No Yes — difficulty 2/5
Hosted cloud available Yes (only option) No
Desktop apps Varies by product Web only
Mobile apps Official apps typically available None official
Ad slot — between tables

Best for

Smaller setups that want SSO on top of a reverse proxy like Traefik or nginx.

Authelia strengths

  • Lightweight Go binary; pairs cleanly with nginx, Traefik, Caddy.
  • Good 2FA flows out of the box (TOTP, WebAuthn).
  • Config is YAML — easy to version-control.

Authelia weaknesses

  • Not a full identity provider — best when fronting existing auth.
  • SAML support lags OIDC/proxy use cases.
  • Smaller community than Keycloak.

What's the catch with Okta?

  • Per-user per-feature pricing balloons past 200 seats.
  • Every outage takes down everything your team signs into.
  • Breach history has eroded trust for security-conscious teams.

Still unsure?

Check the full list of alternatives to Okta: see Okta alternatives, or learn more about Authelia on its project page.

Other comparisons

Okta vs Keycloak

The enterprise-grade replacement when you need SAML, OIDC and LDAP in one place.

Okta vs Authentik

A modern admin UX and flow-based policies without the Keycloak learning curve.

Okta vs Zitadel

Multi-tenant B2B SaaS builders who want event-sourced identity.

Recommended reading

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Will the open source project you depend on still exist in three years?

Bus factor, maintainer burnout, funding models, and the signals that separate OSS projects that survive from those that quietly decay.

From SaaS to self-hosted: a 30-day migration playbook

A week-by-week plan to move one service off SaaS and onto your own server without breaking your team's workflow.