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Keycloak

Open-source identity and access management.

What it is

Keycloak is open-source identity and access management supporting OIDC and SAML, run on your own infrastructure. Running it yourself means user data and session policy stay inside your infrastructure, which is often the deciding factor in regulated environments. The price is that authentication becomes something your team operates, upgrades and keeps available.

Keycloak pricing

Keycloak does not publish a plan ladder we could verify. Free.

Prices read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-08. Vendors change plans without notice — check the source before you budget.

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Key features

  • OIDC and SAML

    Acts as an identity provider for both protocols and brokers external ones.

  • Realms and roles

    Separates tenants into realms with their own users, clients and role mappings.

  • Self-hosted

    Runs on your own infrastructure so credentials never leave it.

Strengths and trade-offs

What works well

  • Full identity server at no licence cost
  • Standards support including SAML and OIDC
  • Complete control over user data

Where it falls short

  • Operating it is a real responsibility
  • Administration console is dense
  • Upgrades need care

Who it is for

Organisations that need enterprise identity without a per-user bill.

Pick it or skip it

Pick Keycloak if

  • Teams that want a free, Apache-licensed identity server with OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0 and SAML 2.0
  • Organisations that must keep identity data on their own infrastructure
  • Companies that want a CNCF project rather than a per-MAU SaaS bill

Skip it if

  • You have nobody to run and upgrade it: Keycloak is self-hosted and the operational cost is yours
  • You need vendor support without a Red Hat subscription
  • You want a managed service with a free tier and no servers — Auth0 or Clerk fit that better

Our verdict

The serious open-source answer to Auth0. Budget for the operations, because the licence saving is not free.

Closest alternatives we track

Same category, ordered by verified starting price.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to run Keycloak?
Keycloak itself is free: it is Apache-2.0 licensed open-source software and a CNCF incubation project supporting OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0 and SAML 2.0. The cost is the infrastructure you run it on and the staff time for upgrades and operations, since there is no hosted Keycloak service from the project. Commercial support is available through Red Hat's build.
How much does Keycloak cost?
Keycloak is free to use. We verified this against the vendor's own page; see "What we checked" below for the date.
Does Keycloak have a free plan?
Yes. Keycloak is free to use at its base level.
Who is Keycloak best for?
Organisations that need enterprise identity without a per-user bill.
What are the main drawbacks of Keycloak?
The trade-offs we noted: Operating it is a real responsibility; Administration console is dense; Upgrades need care.
When should you not use Keycloak?
Skip Keycloak if: You have nobody to run and upgrade it: Keycloak is self-hosted and the operational cost is yours; You need vendor support without a Red Hat subscription; You want a managed service with a free tier and no servers — Auth0 or Clerk fit that better.

What we checked

  • Public APIOffers a documented API you can build against.Yes
  • Mobile appHas a native app for iOS or Android, not just a mobile website.No
  • Open source / self-hostableSource is open and the tool can be run on your own infrastructure.Yes
  • SSO (SAML)Supports SAML single sign-on on at least one plan.Yes

“Not checked” means exactly that — we have not verified it, and we do not guess.

Evidence and freshness

Status: Open source, free — vendor page verifiedReviewed: 2026-09-08

Limit: Vendor pricing page was reviewed by an editor on this date; this record is not a ToolCompare benchmark. Prices and limits change. Open-source project with no price list; hosting and staff time are the real cost.

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Work at Keycloak? Embed the verified-pricing badge

We read this pricing from Keycloak’s own pricing page on 2026-09-08. The badge says that and nothing more: no rating, no payment. How the badge works

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