Autheliavs
Keycloak
Keycloak: A full IAM platform when proxy-level protection is not enough
Authelia
Open-source authentication and two-factor portal for reverse proxies
Overview
What Authelia does
Authelia is an open-source authentication and authorisation server providing single sign-on and two-factor authentication through a login portal. It is designed to work with a reverse proxy — Nginx, Traefik, Caddy or HAProxy — which forwards authentication decisions to it. That model is its distinguishing feature and its constraint. It protects applications that have no authentication of their own, which is exactly the situation in self-hosted stacks full of admin panels and dashboards. It is deliberately lightweight, with file or LDAP-backed users rather than a full identity platform.
What people use it 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
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about 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
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Authelia
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- Autheliavsauthentik
authentik: A middle ground: a real identity provider that is still self-hosted and approachable
Pricing
What Authelia costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Authelia
Free
- Full functionality
- No usage limits
- Community support
Capabilities
Features
Reverse proxy integration
Works with Nginx, Traefik, Caddy and HAProxy through forward auth
Two-factor authentication
TOTP, WebAuthn and push notification options
Access control rules
Per-domain and per-path policies in configuration
Lightweight backends
File-based or LDAP users, with no heavy dependencies
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is Authelia free?
Yes, open source with no licence fee.
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.
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.
Keep looking
Where to go from Authelia
- Authelia alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Authelia pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Authelia badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
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- Best Cybersecurity softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Authelia, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Authelia
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Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
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Put it head to head with anything we hold
Authelia badge
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