Authelia vs Microsoft Entra ID
Authelia and Microsoft Entra ID are both identity and access software. Authelia is open source under Apache-2.0, with 29k GitHub stars. Microsoft Entra ID is a commercial product from Microsoft.
Which to pick
- Pick Authelia when
- You self-host several web apps behind Nginx, Traefik or Caddy and want one login with MFA in front of them.
- Pick Microsoft Entra ID when
- Your organisation uses Microsoft 365 and wants identity and SSO without another vendor.
Side by side
A single sign-on and two-factor portal that sits in front of web apps through a reverse proxy, and also acts as an OpenID Connect provider.
Microsoft's cloud directory (formerly Azure AD) for Microsoft 365 sign-in, SSO to other apps, MFA, conditional access and device-aware policies.
No admin UI for users; they live in a file or LDAP, which suits homelabs and small teams better than large organisations.
Conditional access and governance features need P1 or P2 licences, and the admin surface is large.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server
Cloud service
Go, TypeScript, React, PostgreSQL and Redis
Azure
Open source, Apache-2.0 (permissive)
Closed source, sold by Microsoft
You can build it into a product you sell, as long as you keep its copyright notice.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
29k GitHub stars
508 Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Established: started 10 years ago, latest release v4.39.28.
Not known
Other comparisons
More identity providers and single sign-on servers
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.