Keycloak vs Upstash
The ultimate side-by-side head-to-head analysis for 2026.
Short answer
- Price: not directly comparable — Keycloak is free, Upstash is free tier available.
- How to start: Keycloak is free, Upstash is free tier available.
These lines are generated from the pricing we track, not from a paid placement. We do not publish a quality score, because we do not have one we can stand behind. They cannot tell you which tool fits your workflow — the sections below are there for that. How we score tools.
Keycloak
Upstash
Category
Developer Tools
Developer Tools
Base Price
Free
Free tier
Public API
Yes
Yes
Mobile app
No
No
Open source / self-hostable
Yes
No
SSO (SAML)
Yes
Yes
Choose Keycloak if:
Organisations that need enterprise identity without a per-user bill.
Choose Upstash if:
Serverless applications that need caching or queues without a permanent instance.
Keycloak: pros & cons
- Full identity server at no licence cost
- Standards support including SAML and OIDC
- Complete control over user data
- Operating it is a real responsibility
- Administration console is dense
- Upgrades need care
Upstash: pros & cons
- Per-request pricing suits spiky workloads
- Works well from serverless functions
- No servers to run
- Cost per request beats hourly only up to a point
- Latency depends on region choice
- Less control than self-managed Redis
Our verdict on Keycloak
The serious open-source answer to Auth0. Budget for the operations, because the licence saving is not free.
Our verdict on Upstash
Excellent for intermittent workloads. Constant high throughput is cheaper on a dedicated instance.