Authentik Has a Free Open-Source Identity Provider — SSO LDAP SAML and OAuth2 for Self-Hosted Apps

Authentik Is a Free Identity Provider for Self-Hosted Apps

Keycloak is powerful but complex. Authelia is limited. Authentik gives you enterprise SSO with a beautiful UI and simple setup.

What Authentik Does

• SSO — single sign-on for all your apps
• OAuth2/OIDC — modern auth standard
• SAML — enterprise federation
• LDAP — legacy app compatibility
• Proxy authentication — protect any app without code changes
• Flows — visual authentication flow builder
• MFA — TOTP, WebAuthn, SMS

Quick Start

wget https://goauthentik.io/docker-compose.yml
echo "PG_PASS=$(openssl rand 36 | base64)" >> .env
echo "AUTHENTIK_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand 60 | base64)" >> .env
docker compose up -d
# Visit http://localhost:9000/if/flow/initial-setup/

Protect Any App (Proxy)

# Traefik label — protect app without code changes
labels:
  - traefik.http.middlewares.auth.forwardauth.address=http://authentik:9000/outpost.goauthentik.io/auth/traefik
  - traefik.http.middlewares.auth.forwardauth.trustForwardHeader=true

Authentik vs Keycloak

Feature	Authentik	Keycloak
Setup	5 min	30+ min
UI	Modern	Dated
Proxy auth	Built-in	Needs adapter
Flows	Visual builder	XML
Resources	512MB RAM	1-2GB RAM
LDAP outpost	Yes	Built-in

Why Authentik

1. Beautiful UI — modern admin and user interface
2. Proxy provider — protect apps without code changes
3. Visual flows — drag-and-drop auth flow builder
4. Lightweight — 512MB RAM vs Keycloak 2GB
5. Open source — MIT + enterprise features included

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📧 [e-mail] — Identity platform consulting

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