Is Authelia or Ory better?

Neither clearly leads. Authelia starts at Free and Ory at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Authelia or Ory?

Authelia starts at Free and Ory at Free.

Does Authelia or Ory run on more platforms?

Authelia runs on Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, Self-hosted. Ory runs on web, api.

Can I use Authelia for free?

Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.

What is Authelia best used for?

Authelia is most often used for putting a login and 2fa in front of self-hosted services that have none, adding sso across a small set of internal tools without a full identity platform, home and small-team infrastructure behind a single reverse proxy. Of those, putting a login and 2fa in front of self-hosted services that have none and adding sso across a small set of internal tools without a full identity platform are not what Ory is typically brought in for.

What can Authelia do that Ory cannot?

Authelia covers Reverse proxy integration, Two-factor authentication, Access control rules, Lightweight backends. Ory covers Authentication APIs, Permissions engine, Machine-to-machine tokens, B2B organizations.

Cybersecurity · head to head

Authelia vs Ory

Authelia

Cybersecurity

Open-source authentication and two-factor portal for reverse proxies

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Ory

Cybersecurity

Open-source identity, authentication, and permissions infrastructure

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Authelia depends on a reverse proxy: it is not a standalone identity provider; Ory production and Growth plans are billed annually ($770/year and $9,350/year), which is a larger upfront commitment than monthly-only competitors.
They diverge on capability: Authelia covers Reverse proxy integration, Ory covers Authentication APIs.
Prices and features above were last checked on 29 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Authelia and Ory actually diverge.

Attributes where Authelia and Ory differ
Attribute	Authelia	Ory
Pricing model	Open source, no licence fee	usage-based
Platforms	Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, Self-hosted	web, api

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Authelia

Reverse proxy integration
Two-factor authentication
Access control rules
Lightweight backends

Only in Ory

Authentication APIs
Permissions engine
Machine-to-machine tokens
B2B organizations
SAML SSO
Multi-region deployments

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Authelia

Putting a login and 2FA in front of self-hosted services that have nonenot Ory
Adding SSO across a small set of internal tools without a full identity platformnot Ory
Home and small-team infrastructure behind a single reverse proxynot Ory

Ory

Adding self-hosted or cloud identity to a new productnot Authelia
Implementing fine-grained permission checksnot Authelia
Supporting B2B organizations and multi-tenancynot Authelia
Building machine-to-machine authentication for microservicesnot Authelia

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Authelia

Depends on a reverse proxy: it is not a standalone identity provider
Configuration is YAML-first with no administrative interface, so changes mean editing files
Not a full IAM: user management, provisioning and federation are limited compared with Keycloak
Scales poorly as an organisation-wide identity solution, which is not its target

Ory

Production and Growth plans are billed annually ($770/year and $9,350/year), which is a larger upfront commitment than monthly-only competitors.
SAML SSO and multi-region deployments are reserved for the custom-priced Enterprise tier.
Usage-based pricing across aDAU, M2M tokens, and permission checks makes cost estimation more complex than flat per-MAU billing.

Pricing, plan by plan

Authelia

Free

AutheliaFree
- Full functionality
- No usage limits
- Community support

Ory

Free

DeveloperFree
- Community support
- No production environments
Production$64/month
- $21 monthly credit included
- 1 production environment
- 3 staging environments
Growth$779/month
- $255 monthly credit included
- 2 production environments
- B2B organizations (max 3)

Which should you pick?

Choose Authelia if

You need reverse proxy integration.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, Self-hosted.
You also want two-factor authentication.

Authelia review

Choose Ory if

You need authentication apis.
You want to start without paying.
You work on web, api.
You also want permissions engine.

Ory review

Questions people ask

Is Authelia or Ory better?: Neither clearly leads. Authelia starts at Free and Ory at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Authelia or Ory?: Authelia starts at Free and Ory at Free.
Does Authelia or Ory run on more platforms?: Authelia runs on Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, Self-hosted. Ory runs on web, api.
Can I use Authelia for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Authelia best used for?: Authelia is most often used for putting a login and 2fa in front of self-hosted services that have none, adding sso across a small set of internal tools without a full identity platform, home and small-team infrastructure behind a single reverse proxy. Of those, putting a login and 2fa in front of self-hosted services that have none and adding sso across a small set of internal tools without a full identity platform are not what Ory is typically brought in for.
What can Authelia do that Ory cannot?: Authelia covers Reverse proxy integration, Two-factor authentication, Access control rules, Lightweight backends. Ory covers Authentication APIs, Permissions engine, Machine-to-machine tokens, B2B organizations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Authelia: Is Authelia free?

Yes, open source with no licence fee.

Ory: What does Ory cost?

Ory has a free Developer tier, a Production plan at $770/year including a $21 monthly credit, a Growth plan at $9,350/year including a $255 monthly credit, and custom Enterprise pricing.

Source

Authelia: Does Authelia need a reverse proxy?

Yes. It integrates through forward authentication with Nginx, Traefik, Caddy or HAProxy rather than sitting in front of traffic itself.

Ory: How is usage metered?

Beyond the included credit, Ory charges per average daily active user (aDAU), per machine-to-machine token, and per permission check, with lower per-unit rates on the Growth plan.

Source

Authelia: Authelia or Keycloak?

Authelia is far lighter and aimed at protecting self-hosted services behind a proxy. Keycloak is a full identity and access management platform, and much more to run.

Ory: What payment methods are supported?

Ory accepts credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Amex) and bank transfer, processed via Stripe.

Source

Authelia vs Ory

Authelia

Ory

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Authelia

Only in Ory

What people use each for

Authelia

Ory

Where each one falls short

Authelia

Ory

Pricing, plan by plan

Authelia

Ory

Which should you pick?

Choose Authelia if

Choose Ory if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Authelia

More on Ory

Keep looking

Other head to heads