What is the actual difference between Authentik and Authelia?

Authentik is an identity provider. Authelia is an authentication and authorization gateway that sits alongside a reverse proxy such as Nginx, Traefik, or Caddy and describes itself as a companion for common reverse proxies. Authentik's site lists OAuth2 and OIDC, SAML2, SCIM, LDAP, RADIUS, an application proxy, and browser-based remote access to RDP, VNC, and SSH. Authelia is an OpenID Certified OpenID Connect provider with access control rules by user, group, and URL, and does not offer SAML.

Is Authelia really free?

Yes. Authelia is Apache 2.0 licensed with no paid tier and no commercial support offering. The project asks for community sponsorship through OpenCollective to fund formal security audits. Your cost is infrastructure and the time to run it, which is why it takes the maximum 5.0 on pricing transparency in our rubric. A maximum score there means no license fee, not no cost, and there is no service level agreement to escalate to at three in the morning.

How much does authentik cost?

The open source edition is free to self-host and authentik states that no features move from the open source version to the enterprise version. Enterprise is listed at 5 dollars per user per month billed annually, plus 2 cents per external user per month, and adds Google Workspace and Microsoft Entra ID integrations, device compliance, enhanced audit logging, and ticket-based support above a 1,000 dollar subscription. Enterprise Plus starts at 20,000 dollars annually and adds customized support with service level agreements, multi-instance deployment, and FIPS compliance for FedRAMP.

Which scores higher in your rubric?

Authentik, at 3.9 overall against 3.7, but the split is more interesting than the total. Authentik scores higher on governance and audit at 3.5 against 3.0 and on support and ecosystem at 3.0 against 2.5. Authelia scores higher on three: authorization at 4.0 against 3.5, deployment flexibility at 5.0 against 4.5, and pricing transparency at 5.0 against 4.5. Five dimensions tie, including authentication at 4.5, SSO and federation at 4.5, and MFA and passwordless at 4.0.

Authentik vs Authelia

The honest comparison

These two get compared because both are open source, both are self-hosted, and both show up in the same homelab threads. They are not the same category of thing.

Authentik is an identity provider. Its own site lists OAuth2 and OIDC, SAML2, SCIM, LDAP, RADIUS, an application proxy, and browser-based remote access to RDP, VNC, and SSH. Authelia is an authentication and authorization gateway. Its own site describes it as a companion for common reverse proxies and an OpenID Certified OpenID Connect provider, with access control rules by user, group, and URL. Authelia has no SAML. Our matrix ties them at 4.5 on SSO and federation, and that tie is fair on quality, but the shapes behind it differ: Authelia does OIDC and does it to a certification standard, while Authentik covers more protocols including the older ones a legacy application will ask for.

The scores split in a way that rewards reading past the total. Authentik takes 3.9 to 3.7 overall and leads governance and audit 3.5 to 3.0 and support and ecosystem 3.0 to 2.5. Authelia leads three: authorization 4.0 to 3.5, on the strength of its rule-based access control; deployment flexibility 5.0 to 4.5, because it is small and self-hosted with nothing else to consider; and pricing transparency 5.0 to 4.5, because there is nothing to buy. Five dimensions tie.

The commercial models diverge more than the products. authentik's pricing page lists Enterprise at 5 dollars per user per month billed annually and Enterprise Plus from 20,000 dollars annually with service level agreements and FIPS compliance for FedRAMP, and commits that no open source features move behind the paywall. That page also states there is no hosted version of authentik. Authelia has no paid tier at all and funds security audits through OpenCollective sponsorship.

Our assessment is that the honest question is not which is better but whether your problem is an identity provider or a gate. If you need one login in front of a dozen internal services behind Traefik, Authelia is the smaller, quieter answer. If applications need to federate to you, Authelia will not do it.

When Authentik wins

An application needs SAML, or you need LDAP, SCIM, or RADIUS, none of which Authelia serves as a protocol endpoint
You want a paid support path, which exists at 5 dollars per user per month and a service level agreement above 20,000 dollars a year
Configurable multi-stage login flows and a friendlier admin interface matter because more than one person administers this
Browser-based remote access to RDP, VNC, and SSH is a capability you would otherwise buy separately

When Authelia wins

Your setup is a reverse proxy and a handful of internal services, and an identity provider is more moving parts than you want
Rule-based access control by user, group, and URL is the requirement, where Authelia leads authorization 4.0 to 3.5
Apache 2.0 with no commercial edition matters, so there is no paid tier for a feature to migrate into later
Passkeys and WebAuthn in front of a homelab or small-team service is the whole job, and OpenID certification is reassurance enough

Pricing

Neither charges you to start. Authelia has no license cost and no paid tier, which is why it takes 5.0 on pricing transparency, and the real cost is the hours you spend on it and the absence of anyone to call. authentik is free to self-host, with Enterprise at 5 dollars per user per month billed annually plus 2 cents per external user per month, and Enterprise Plus from 20,000 dollars annually for customized support, multi-instance deployment, and FIPS. If a support contract is a compliance requirement rather than a comfort, that is the entire pricing comparison. Model your own operating hours alongside license cost in the TCO calculator, because for self-hosted identity the hours are the larger number.

Verdict

Choose Authentik when you need an identity provider that speaks the protocols your applications expect, or when someone needs a support contract to sign off the project. Choose Authelia when a lightweight gate in front of reverse-proxied services is genuinely all you need, and you are content with community support. Neither is the pick for a large enterprise ecosystem with many certified integrations: that is Keycloak vs Zitadel territory, and for deep fine-grained authorization see Ory. Browse the open-source IAM category for the rest of the field.