Authorization
AuthZed
Capability scores
Methodology →- Authentication
- 2.0
- SSO & Federation
- 2.0
- Authorization
- 5.0
- Lifecycle & Provisioning
- 2.5
- MFA & Passwordless
- 1.5
- Governance & Audit
- 3.5
- Developer Experience
- 4.5
- Deployment Flexibility
- 4.5
- Pricing Transparency
- 3.5
- Support & Ecosystem
- 3.0
Scored 0–5 against a published rubric. Independent analysis, no vendor sponsorship.
Overview
AuthZed builds SpiceDB, an open-source authorization system inspired by Google Zanzibar, plus a managed cloud. It targets relationship-based access control for applications with graph-shaped permissions.
Capability deep-dive
SpiceDB's relationship model, consistency guarantees, and scale are the strengths, ideal for sharing and hierarchy-heavy domains. It requires modeling discipline and running a tuple store, and it solves authorization only, not authentication.
Pricing
Open-source SpiceDB free; managed AuthZed cloud and enterprise tiers are usage-based.
Bottom line
A leading choice when permissions are fundamentally about relationships.
Independent editorial review. Author: Deepak Gupta. Last evaluated 2026-06-10.