IAM Server Comparison

This article aims to explain and show the differences between some important IAM solutions in the OSS market.

WSO2 IAM

Identity and Access management. SSO, oAuth2, OIDC, SAML, IAM. Written in Java. It is the biggest option. As it is a bit old, it is robust, provides lot of features.

• Pros: Robust, lot of features. ETL for existing user storage. Relies on several RDMS systems. Extensive documentation.
• Cons: No docker support for OSS. Heavyweight. Un-friendly UI

Hydra

oAuth2 server. SSO, oAuth2 and openId connect server, but NOT identity provider. Written in GO. It is lightweight, modular and it provides a concept called challange to implement login and consent use cases to provide authentication.

• Pros: Really modular and lightweight (5 MB containers). Docker support
• Cons: Does not provide identity management. Based on multi tenancy naming convention.

Keycloak

Identity and Access management. SSO, oAuth2, OIDC, SAML, IAM. Written in Java and provided by Red Hat.

• Pros: Docker. Good Documentation. Relies on several RDMS systems. 2600 git starts and 260 contributors.
• Cons: Kubernetes.

Gluu

Identity and Access management. SSO, oAuth2, OIDC, SAML, IAM. Written in Java.

• Pros: New and Modern. Good Documentation.
• Cons: Docker support is nearly new. Multi tenancy is not really clear. Relies storage on OpenLDAP