Adoption & Ecosystem
Who uses it
This deep-dive did not find named adopters with a primary citable source. The repository has no ADOPTERS file (checked at commit 9da4c56), and the reviews encountered describe authentik's popularity in the self-hosting community and as an Okta/Auth0 alternative without naming individual organizations as first-party sources (opentechhub). Rather than invent adopters, this page reports the GitHub signals below.
Adoption signals
Observed via the GitHub REST API on 2026-06-22:
| Signal | Value |
|---|---|
| Stars | 22,091 |
| Forks | 1,663 |
| Watchers | 68 |
| Repository created | 2019-12-30 |
The contributor list runs to roughly 557 pages at per_page=1 (including anonymous contributors), indicating a broad contributor base. Releases follow a frequent calendar-versioned cadence (the code at this commit declares 2026.8.0-rc1, nearest stable tag version/2026.5.3).
Ecosystem
- Forward-auth outposts front reverse proxies such as Traefik, nginx, and Envoy, adding authentication to apps that lack it.
- Deployment paths include an official Helm chart, Docker Compose, and Kubernetes manifests (docs).
- Bundled protocol providers (
authentik/providers/) cover OAuth2/OIDC, SAML, LDAP, RADIUS, RAC, and SCIM, so a single server integrates with both applications and external directories. authentik/sources/adds social login and inbound directory federation.
Alternatives
authentik's real distinction is the visual "Flow, Stage, Policy" model for composing authentication, combined with bundling many protocols (OIDC, SAML, LDAP, RADIUS, RAC, SCIM) in one server (elest.io comparison). Pick it when you want that breadth self-hosted; pick an alternative when its narrower focus fits better.
| Alternative | Differs by |
|---|---|
| Keycloak | Red Hat's full-featured OSS IdP; closest in capability but a heavier, more complex admin experience |
| Authelia | Lightweight, focused on forward-auth; fewer IdP features than authentik |
| Zitadel | OSS IdP with a multi-tenant, cloud-native focus |
| Ory | Composable identity components (Kratos, Hydra) rather than one bundled server |
| Okta / Auth0 / Entra ID | Hosted commercial IdPs; no self-hosting, managed operations |