OpenFGA vs AuthZed vs Cerbos
- Authentication
- 1.5
- 2.0
- SSO & Federation
- 1.5
- 2.0
- Authorization
- 4.7
- 5.0
- Lifecycle & Provisioning
- 3.0
- 2.5
- MFA & Passwordless
- 1.0
- 1.5
- Governance & Audit
- 3.5
- 3.5
- Developer Experience
- 4.3
- 4.5
- Deployment Flexibility
- 4.5
- 4.5
- Pricing Transparency
- 4.5
- 3.5
- Support & Ecosystem
- 3.5
- 3.0
Scored 0–5 against a published rubric. Bold marks the higher score. Independent analysis, no vendor sponsorship.
The honest comparison
These three are the names that come up most when teams move authorization out of scattered application code into a dedicated engine. OpenFGA and AuthZed (SpiceDB) implement Google Zanzibar-style relationship-based access control (ReBAC), modeling permissions as relationships between objects. Cerbos takes a different approach: stateless policy-as-code, where you define attribute-based rules and Cerbos evaluates them without storing the relationship graph.
| Dimension | OpenFGA | AuthZed (SpiceDB) | Cerbos |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model | ReBAC (Zanzibar) | ReBAC (Zanzibar) | Policy-as-code (ABAC/RBAC) |
| State | Stores relationship tuples | Stores relationship tuples | Stateless evaluation |
| Governance | CNCF sandbox (Okta origin) | Commercial (AuthZed) | Open source + commercial (Cerbos Hub) |
| Best for | Fine-grained relationships, Okta ecosystem | Production ReBAC with support | Context-rich, attribute-based decisions |
| Managed option | Via partners/ecosystem | AuthZed Cloud | Cerbos Hub |
When each wins
- OpenFGA: you want vendor-neutral, CNCF-governed ReBAC, especially alongside Okta/Auth0.
- AuthZed: you want a production-hardened Zanzibar engine with commercial support and a managed service.
- Cerbos: your decisions are driven by attributes and request context rather than a stored relationship graph, and you prefer stateless policy files in version control.
Pricing
All three have free open-source cores. AuthZed and Cerbos add managed and enterprise tiers (AuthZed Cloud, Cerbos Hub); OpenFGA is community-driven with managed options through the ecosystem.
Verdict
If permissions are fundamentally about relationships ("members of this team can edit these docs"), choose a ReBAC engine: OpenFGA for CNCF-neutral open source, AuthZed for commercial backing. If decisions hinge on attributes and context ("managers in the EU region during business hours"), Cerbos fits better and avoids maintaining a relationship store. See OpenFGA vs Cerbos, AuthZed vs OpenFGA, the authorization guide, and the category.
Last updated 2026-06-19
Independent, community-driven analysis. No vendor sponsorship. Compiled from public research and community input and verified on a best-effort basis, so details may be incomplete or out of date. Scores are opinions, not advice. Trademarks belong to their owners; mention does not imply affiliation or endorsement. See the full disclaimer, or send corrections to [email protected].