Cybersecurity · head to head
Ory vs Semperis
Ory
Cybersecurity
Open-source identity, authentication, and permissions infrastructure
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Semperis
Cybersecurity
Identity threat detection and Active Directory forest recovery for AD, Entra ID and Okta, from a privately held US vendor.
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Ory has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Ory production and Growth plans are billed annually ($770/year and $9,350/year), which is a larger upfront commitment than monthly-only competitors.; Semperis scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.
- They diverge on capability: Ory covers Authentication APIs, Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Ory and Semperis actually diverge.
Identical on both: 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 Ory
- Authentication APIs
- Permissions engine
- Machine-to-machine tokens
- B2B organizations
- SAML SSO
- Multi-region deployments
Only in Semperis
- Active Directory Forest Recovery
- Malware-free restore
- Replication-stream monitoring
- Automated rollback
- Attack indicator scoring
- Entra ID and Okta coverage
- Purple Knight
- Forest Druid
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Ory
- Adding self-hosted or cloud identity to a new productnot Semperis
- Implementing fine-grained permission checksnot Semperis
- Supporting B2B organizations and multi-tenancynot Semperis
- Building machine-to-machine authentication for microservicesnot Semperis
Semperis
- An organisation that cannot answer an auditor or insurer asking how long it would take to rebuild Active Directory after a destructive attacknot Ory
- Post-incident recovery where domain controllers are compromised and restoring from system-state backup would reintroduce the attacker's footholdnot Ory
- Continuous detection of privileged group changes and directory-level tampering that domain controller security logs missnot Ory
- Hybrid estates where AD, Entra ID and Okta all matter and no single tool currently shows changes across the threenot Ory
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
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.
Semperis
- Scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.
- The licence buys tooling, not a proven runbook: forest recovery is only worth what your last rehearsal demonstrated, and a plan that has never been executed end to end in a lab is an untested assumption regardless of what was purchased.
- It overlaps with backup and directory management products from Quest, Veeam, Commvault and others, so the buyer must argue internally why a dedicated product is needed alongside a backup contract that already claims to protect Active Directory.
- Running Directory Services Protector well requires someone who understands AD internals, replication metadata and Tier 0 attack paths, and without that person the alerts on privileged changes are either ignored or auto-reverted in ways that break legitimate administration.
- Licensing is driven by identity object counts, so directories carrying years of stale user accounts and service principals pay for objects that should have been deleted, and the cleanup project that would reduce the bill is the one nobody has time for.
Pricing, plan by plan
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)
Semperis
On requestNo published plan breakdown. See the Semperis review.
Which should you pick?
Choose Ory if
- You need authentication apis.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on web, api.
- You also want permissions engine.
Choose Semperis if
- You need active directory forest recovery.
- You also want malware-free restore.
Questions people ask
- Is Ory or Semperis better?
- Neither clearly leads. Ory starts at Free and Semperis at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Ory or Semperis?
- Ory has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Ory and On request for Semperis.
- Does Ory or Semperis run on more platforms?
- Ory runs on web, api. Semperis runs on Web.
- Can I use Ory for free?
- Yes. Ory has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Semperis starts at On request.
- What is Ory best used for?
- Ory is most often used for adding self-hosted or cloud identity to a new product, implementing fine-grained permission checks, supporting b2b organizations and multi-tenancy, building machine-to-machine authentication for microservices. Of those, adding self-hosted or cloud identity to a new product and implementing fine-grained permission checks are not what Semperis is typically brought in for.
- What can Ory do that Semperis cannot?
- Ory covers Authentication APIs, Permissions engine, Machine-to-machine tokens, B2B organizations. Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery, Malware-free restore, Replication-stream monitoring, Automated rollback.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
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.
SourceSemperis: Does this replace my backups?
No. It replaces the Active Directory recovery procedure specifically. You still need backups for everything else, and the point of Semperis is that a generic system-state backup of a domain controller is a poor way to recover a forest because it restores the operating system along with whatever compromised it.
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.
SourceSemperis: Is it useful if we are cloud-only on Entra ID?
Partly. Directory Services Protector covers Entra ID and Okta for change tracking and posture, but the forest recovery product, which is the strongest reason to buy, applies to on-premises Active Directory. A genuinely cloud-only organisation should weigh it against Microsoft's own tooling.
Ory: What payment methods are supported?
Ory accepts credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Amex) and bank transfer, processed via Stripe.
SourceSemperis: Are Purple Knight and Forest Druid really free?
Yes, both are free downloads with no licence requirement, and they are widely used by organisations that are not Semperis customers. They are also, transparently, the top of the sales funnel.
Semperis: How long does forest recovery actually take?
The honest answer is whatever your rehearsal took. The vendor's case is hours instead of days, and automation genuinely removes most manual steps, but the number that matters for your board is the one from a test in your own environment.
Semperis: Does it require agents on domain controllers?
It collects directory changes from the AD replication stream, which is what lets it see changes that bypass the security log. Deployment details vary by product and version, so confirm the exact architecture against your domain controller change-control rules.
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