Keycloak is a Security & identity tool: Open-source identity and access management.

How much does Keycloak cost?

Keycloak is Open source; there is no mandatory paid plan.

What are the best alternatives to Keycloak?

Community-listed alternatives to Keycloak include Okta, Papermark, Auth0, Dynatrace.

What does Keycloak integrate with?

Keycloak integrates with OIDC, SAML, LDAP, Active Directory, Kubernetes, Spring and more.

Keycloak

Open-source identity and access management

Open sourceSecurity & identity

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Keycloak is a security & identity tool for Enterprise and Developers, offered as open source. Based in United States, founded in 2014. Popular alternatives include Okta, Papermark, Auth0.

About Keycloak

Keycloak is an open-source identity and access management server, originally created by Red Hat and now a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) incubating project under the Apache 2.0 license. It provides single sign-on for web and mobile applications and APIs using the standard OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0 and SAML 2.0 protocols, and it runs on your own infrastructure.

Its feature set matches commercial identity products: user federation with LDAP and Active Directory, identity brokering with social logins and external identity providers, multi-factor authentication with OTP and WebAuthn, password policies, fine-grained authorization services, realms for multi-tenancy, an admin console and a self-service account console. Login pages and emails can be themed, and extensions are written in Java through service provider interfaces. The software is free; Red Hat sells a supported distribution, the Red Hat build of Keycloak, for organizations that need commercial support.

Keycloak fits enterprises, public institutions and B2B software vendors that need to keep identity data under their own control, for example for data residency or regulatory reasons. The trade-off is operational: running it in high availability, tuning databases and caches, upgrading between major versions and customizing themes require expertise. Startups that want hosted authentication with polished UI components usually choose Auth0, Clerk or WorkOS, while Authentik and Zitadel are newer open-source alternatives with lighter operations.

Key features of Keycloak

SSO via OIDC and SAML
User federation with LDAP/AD
Identity brokering and social login
MFA and password policies
Fine-grained authorization
Admin and account consoles

Pros and cons

Pros

Free and open source
Enterprise-grade features
Full control over identity data
Large community

Cons

Operationally complex
UI and theming are dated
Upgrades require care
Scaling needs expertise

Keycloak pricing

Keycloak uses a open source model.

Plan	Price	Includes
Open source	$0	Apache 2.0, self-hosted
Red Hat build	Custom	Commercial support subscription

Source: www.keycloak.org · checked on Oct 20, 2026

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How Keycloak compares in Security & identity

Rank by votes: #1 / 33
Starting price: $0
Free alternatives: 4

Keycloak ranks #1 of 33 security & identity tools by community votes and is not directly comparable on price.

Common use cases

1Enterprise SSO across internal apps
2Government identity with data sovereignty
3B2B SaaS self-hosting auth
4Federating Active Directory to web apps

Best for

Organizations needing self-hosted enterprise IAM.

Not ideal for

Startups wanting simple hosted auth (Clerk, Auth0).

Integrations

OIDC
SAML
LDAP
Active Directory
Kubernetes
Spring
Quarkus
Any OAuth app

Our take

Keycloak is the open-source IAM workhorse; plan for operations.

FAQ

What is Keycloak?: Keycloak is a Security & identity tool: Open-source identity and access management.
How much does Keycloak cost?: Keycloak is Open source; there is no mandatory paid plan.
What are the best alternatives to Keycloak?: Community-listed alternatives to Keycloak include Okta, Papermark, Auth0, Dynatrace.
What does Keycloak integrate with?: Keycloak integrates with OIDC, SAML, LDAP, Active Directory, Kubernetes, Spring and more.
Which platforms does Keycloak support?: Keycloak is available on web.
Who is Keycloak for?: Organizations needing self-hosted enterprise IAM.

Alternatives to Keycloak

See all 10

Okta
▲ 0
Enterprise identity platform for SSO, MFA and user lifecycle
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checked Oct 20
Papermark
▲ 0
Open-source document sharing and virtual data rooms with analytics
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checked Oct 26
Auth0
▲ 0
Identity platform for applications
Freemium · $35Developers
checked Oct 20
Dynatrace
▲ 0
AI-driven observability and app security for large cloud estates
PaidEnterprise
checked Oct 20
Cloudflare
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CDN, DNS, WAF and edge platform
Freemium · $5Developers
checked Oct 20
fileForensics
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Checks files for tampering and AI edits before data is extracted
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checked Nov 5

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Tresorit
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Vanta
▲ 0
Automated SOC 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR compliance
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checked Oct 20
Snyk
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Developer security for code and dependencies
Freemium · $25Developers
checked Oct 20
HOL Guard
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Policy checks on AI coding agent tools, before the command runs
FreemiumDevelopers

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