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Best Open Source Identity & Access Management Alternatives to Okta in 2026

Open-source IAM platforms provide cost-effective, self-hosted alternatives to Okta for organizations that want full control over their identity infrastructure without per-user licensing fees.

3 Open Source IAM Platforms, side by side

ToolDeploymentPricing modelOpen source
KeycloakSelf-hostedOpen Source + Enterprise SubscriptionYes
authentikSelf-hostedOpen Source + EnterpriseYes
JumpCloudCloudPer-user (billed annually)—

These platforms offer SSO, MFA, directory federation, and authorization services with complete source code transparency. They are ideal for organizations with engineering expertise to operate identity infrastructure, strict data sovereignty requirements, or environments where commercial SaaS identity platforms cannot be used.

By use case

Our read on which tool suits which job. Editorial, not paid, and separate from the listing below.

Teams that need full control, auditability, and zero license cost

Keycloak

The most mature and widely adopted open-source IAM platform, backed by Red Hat. Provides SSO, identity brokering, LDAP federation, and fine-grained authorization with zero licensing costs.

Open source, Self-hosted

Teams wanting a modern, developer-friendly open-source identity provider with easy deployment

authentik

A modern, developer-friendly open-source identity provider with a polished UI and flow-based authentication engine. Best for teams wanting easy Docker/Kubernetes deployment with full protocol support.

Open source, Self-hosted

SMBs and mid-market teams wanting IAM plus MDM without buying both

JumpCloud

While not fully open-source, JumpCloud provides a free tier for up to 10 users and an open directory philosophy that replaces Active Directory. Best for small teams wanting a managed platform with free entry.

Cloud

Keycloak

Identity & Access Management
Best fit for

Teams that need full control, auditability, and zero license cost

Keycloak is the open-source identity and access management platform backed by Red Hat. It provides SSO, federation, identity brokering, and social login for modern applications and services. Keycloak is the upstream project for Red Hat Build of Keycloak (the commercially supported version) and is widely deployed in both enterprise and community settings where full control over the identity stack is required.

Pricing

Free (open source) / Red Hat Build of Keycloak via subscription

Open Source + Enterprise Subscription

Deployment

Self-hosted, Open source

Visit KeycloakView listing

authentik

Identity & Access Management
Best fit for

Teams wanting a modern, developer-friendly open-source identity provider with easy deployment

authentik is an open-source identity provider focused on flexibility and versatility. It supports SAML, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, LDAP, SCIM, and RADIUS protocols. It provides a modern UI for user self-service, admin management, and can act as a full identity provider or authentication proxy.

Pricing

Free (Open Source) / Enterprise from contact

Open Source + Enterprise

Deployment

Self-hosted, Open source

Visit authentikView listing

JumpCloud

Identity & Access Management
Best fit for

SMBs and mid-market teams wanting IAM plus MDM without buying both

JumpCloud is an open directory platform that consolidates identity, device, and access management into a single tool. It combines SSO, MFA, cloud LDAP, RADIUS, and cross-platform device management (Windows, macOS, Linux) in one dashboard. The platform is especially popular with SMBs and mid-market IT teams who want to replace Active Directory, Okta, and an MDM tool with one product.

Pricing

Free 30-day trial (legacy free tier for up to 10 users/10 devices referenced by third parties); paid packages from $9/user/mo annual (Device Management), SSO from $11/user/mo annual; Platform tier is custom/contact-sales

Per-user (billed annually)

Deployment

Cloud

Standards & certifications

SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR

Visit JumpCloudView listing

Comparisons

JumpCloud vs OneLogin

Choose JumpCloud if all-in-one platform combines directory, SSO, MFA, and MDM is your priority and small-to-mid-size org...

Read Comparison

Duo Security vs JumpCloud

Choose Duo Security if exceptionally easy to deploy. Fastest MFA rollout in the industry is your priority and organizati...

Read Comparison

authentik vs Keycloak

Choose authentik if you want one self-hosted system to cover modern SSO as well as LDAP, RADIUS and proxy-based access f...

Read Comparison

JumpCloud vs Keycloak

Choose JumpCloud if all-in-one platform combines directory, SSO, MFA, and MDM is your priority and small-to-mid-size org...

Read Comparison

Auth0 vs JumpCloud

Choose Auth0 if best developer experience in the identity industry with comprehensive SDKs is your priority and developm...

Read Comparison

Auth0 vs Keycloak

Choose Auth0 if best developer experience in the identity industry with comprehensive SDKs is your priority and developm...

Read Comparison

Shortlists

Editorial lists and deep dives covering these tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

Keycloak supports the same SSO protocols as Okta (SAML 2.0, OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0) and can handle enterprise SSO deployments. However, Keycloak lacks Okta's 7,000+ pre-built application integrations, meaning your team must configure each application connection manually. For organizations with 50-200 SaaS applications, this manual integration work is significant. Keycloak is a viable Okta replacement if you have the engineering resources to manage integrations and operate the infrastructure.

While open-source IAM eliminates licensing fees, total cost of ownership includes infrastructure hosting, engineering time for deployment and configuration, ongoing patching and upgrades, high-availability architecture, disaster recovery planning, and security monitoring of the identity platform itself. For a team running Keycloak in production, expect to allocate 0.5 to 1 full-time engineer for operations. At enterprise scale, this operational cost can approach or exceed Okta's per-user licensing.

Keycloak has a strong security track record with active maintenance from Red Hat and a responsive security disclosure process. It undergoes regular security audits and has a well-documented security hardening guide. However, security in production depends entirely on your deployment. Proper TLS configuration, database security, network isolation, and timely patching are your responsibility. Organizations using Keycloak in production should treat it as a critical security service and apply rigorous operational security practices.

JumpCloud offers a fully functional free tier for up to 10 users that includes directory, SSO, MFA, and device management. Far more generous than Okta, which has no free tier for workforce identity. For small teams, startups, and pilot projects, JumpCloud's free tier provides a complete identity platform at no cost. The trade-off is a smaller SSO integration catalog and less mature governance features compared to Okta.

View all Identity & Access Management tools

About this listing

Open Source IAM Platforms tools, compared on public information. The comparison table and the full entries follow our editorial order, with any paid Featured listing shown first and labelled. How we work →