Open Source IAM Platforms -- Okta Alternatives
Open-source IAM platforms provide cost-effective, self-hosted alternatives to Okta for organizations that want full control over their identity infrastructure without per-user licensing fees. These platforms offer SSO, MFA, directory federation, and authorization services with complete source code transparency. They are ideal for organizations with engineering expertise to operate identity infrastructure, strict data sovereignty requirements, or environments where commercial SaaS identity platforms cannot be used.
Free (open source) / Red Hat SSO for enterprise support
The most mature and widely adopted open-source IAM platform, backed by Red Hat. Keycloak provides SSO, identity brokering, LDAP federation, and fine-grained authorization with zero licensing costs. Best for organizations with engineering teams capable of deploying and operating self-hosted identity infrastructure.
Free (up to 10 users) / From $7/user/month (Core) / Custom for Enterprise
While not fully open-source, JumpCloud provides a free tier for up to 10 users and embraces an open directory philosophy that replaces Active Directory with a cloud-native platform. Best for small teams that want a managed platform with free entry and consolidated identity and device management.
Open-source IAM platform with SSO, identity brokering, and fine-grained authorization
Free (open source) / Red Hat SSO for enterprise support
Organizations with engineering expertise that want full control over their identity platform, avoid vendor lock-in, and eliminate IAM licensing costs
Open directory platform unifying identity, device management, and access in one console
Free (up to 10 users) / From $7/user/month (Core) / Custom for Enterprise
Small-to-mid-size organizations wanting to consolidate directory, SSO, MFA, and device management into a single platform without needing Active Directory
Compare all 2 Okta alternatives side-by-side across pricing, deployment, and key capabilities.
| Feature | Keycloak 4.3/5 | JumpCloud 4.3/5 |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Model | Free open source with optional commercial support | Per-user monthly subscription with free tier |
| Open Source | + | -- |
| Cloud-Hosted | -- | + |
| Self-Hosted | + | -- |
| Best For | Organizations with engineering expertise that want full control over their identity platform, avoid vendor lock-in, and eliminate IAM licensing costs | Small-to-mid-size organizations wanting to consolidate directory, SSO, MFA, and device management into a single platform without needing Active Directory |
| Key Features |
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| Website | Visit | Visit |
Keycloak supports the same SSO protocols as Okta (SAML 2.0, OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0) and can handle enterprise SSO deployments. However, Keycloak lacks Okta's 7,000+ pre-built application integrations, meaning your team must configure each application connection manually. For organizations with 50-200 SaaS applications, this manual integration work is significant. Keycloak is a viable Okta replacement if you have the engineering resources to manage integrations and operate the infrastructure.
While open-source IAM eliminates licensing fees, total cost of ownership includes infrastructure hosting, engineering time for deployment and configuration, ongoing patching and upgrades, high-availability architecture, disaster recovery planning, and security monitoring of the identity platform itself. For a team running Keycloak in production, expect to allocate 0.5 to 1 full-time engineer for operations. At enterprise scale, this operational cost can approach or exceed Okta's per-user licensing.
Keycloak has a strong security track record with active maintenance from Red Hat and a responsive security disclosure process. It undergoes regular security audits and has a well-documented security hardening guide. However, security in production depends entirely on your deployment — proper TLS configuration, database security, network isolation, and timely patching are your responsibility. Organizations using Keycloak in production should treat it as a critical security service and apply rigorous operational security practices.
JumpCloud offers a fully functional free tier for up to 10 users that includes directory, SSO, MFA, and device management — far more generous than Okta, which has no free tier for workforce identity. For small teams, startups, and pilot projects, JumpCloud's free tier provides a complete identity platform at no cost. The trade-off is a smaller SSO integration catalog and less mature governance features compared to Okta.
Open-source IAM platform with SSO, identity brokering, and fine-grained authorization
ComparisonOpen directory platform unifying identity, device management, and access in one console
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