Self-Hosted Alternatives to Okta
Why Replace Okta?
Cost. Okta starts at $2/user/month for basic SSO and scales to $15+/user/month for advanced features. A 50-person team pays $1,200-$9,000/year. Self-hosted identity providers are free for unlimited users.
Security control. Okta has been breached multiple times — in 2022 (Lapsus$ group accessed internal systems) and 2023 (attackers accessed customer support case data including HAR files with session tokens). When your identity provider is breached, every connected application is compromised. Self-hosting puts this critical infrastructure under your control.
No vendor dependency. Okta owns your authentication infrastructure. If they change pricing, terms, or go down (multiple major outages in 2022-2023), your entire organization loses access to everything. Self-hosted solutions have no single vendor dependency.
Compliance. Some regulations (GDPR, SOC 2, healthcare) require identity data to stay on-premises or within specific jurisdictions. Self-hosted IdPs give you full data residency control.
Best Alternatives
Keycloak — Best Enterprise Replacement
Keycloak is the closest self-hosted equivalent to Okta. Maintained by Red Hat, it offers OIDC, SAML 2.0, LDAP/AD federation, social login, MFA, fine-grained authorization, user self-service, and a comprehensive admin console. It’s widely used in enterprise environments and has years of production hardening. If you’re migrating from Okta in a professional setting, Keycloak is the answer.
Replaces these Okta features: SSO, SAML integration, LDAP/AD federation, MFA, user lifecycle management, self-service portal, social login.
Read our full guide: How to Self-Host Keycloak
Authentik — Best Modern Alternative
Authentik is a newer identity provider with a modern UI and visual flow designer. It supports OIDC, SAML, LDAP (as both consumer and provider), SCIM provisioning, social login, and MFA. It’s not as enterprise-hardened as Keycloak but offers a significantly better admin experience and faster setup. Ideal for startups, small teams, and homelabs that need Okta-like features without Okta-like complexity.
Replaces these Okta features: SSO, SAML, LDAP proxy, MFA, user management, social login, SCIM provisioning.
Read our full guide: How to Self-Host Authentik
Authelia — Best Lightweight Alternative
Authelia is a lightweight forward-auth server that adds SSO and 2FA to applications behind a reverse proxy. It doesn’t match Okta’s feature breadth — no SAML, no user management UI, no social login — but it covers the most common use case: “put a login gate with 2FA in front of all my web services.” Uses 50 MB of RAM.
Replaces these Okta features: Basic SSO (forward-auth), MFA (TOTP, WebAuthn), access policies.
Read our full guide: How to Self-Host Authelia
Migration Guide
From Okta to Keycloak
- Export users: Use Okta’s API to export your user directory (GET
/api/v1/users). Map fields to Keycloak’s user schema. - Deploy Keycloak following our setup guide
- Create a realm for your organization
- Import users: Use Keycloak’s Admin REST API or User Federation to import users. If migrating from Okta LDAP, configure LDAP federation in Keycloak.
- Recreate applications: For each Okta application integration:
- OIDC apps: Create a Keycloak client with the same client_id and redirect_uris
- SAML apps: Create a Keycloak client with the same entity ID and ACS URL
- Update application configs: Point each app’s SSO settings from Okta’s issuer URL to Keycloak’s realm URL
- Test thoroughly before switching DNS or decommissioning Okta
- User passwords: Users will need to reset passwords (Okta doesn’t export password hashes). Keycloak supports “update password” required actions on first login.
From Okta to Authentik
- Deploy Authentik following our setup guide
- Create providers (OIDC or SAML) for each application
- Import users via CSV or configure LDAP sync if you use AD
- Update application configs to point to Authentik
- Recreate any custom Okta flows using Authentik’s visual flow designer
Cost Comparison
| Okta (SSO) | Okta (Adaptive) | Keycloak | Authentik | Authelia | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per user/month | $2 | $6-15 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| 10 users/year | $240 | $720-1,800 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| 50 users/year | $1,200 | $3,600-9,000 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| 100 users/year | $2,400 | $7,200-18,000 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Infrastructure | Managed | Managed | ~$10/mo VPS | ~$10/mo VPS | ~$5/mo VPS |
| Support | Included | Included | Community/Red Hat | Community/Enterprise | Community |
Self-hosting breaks even immediately for any team larger than a few people. The ROI grows linearly with user count.
What You Give Up
- Managed infrastructure. Okta handles uptime, patches, and scaling. Self-hosted means you manage everything.
- Pre-built integrations. Okta’s integration network has 7,000+ pre-configured app integrations. Keycloak and Authentik require manual client configuration for each app.
- Adaptive MFA. Okta’s risk-based authentication (device trust, impossible travel, anomaly detection) has no self-hosted equivalent.
- Professional support SLA. Okta offers 99.99% uptime SLA and 24/7 support. Self-hosted support is community-based (unless you buy Red Hat support for Keycloak).
- Compliance certifications. Okta holds SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP. Your self-hosted instance has whatever certifications you earn yourself.
FAQ
Is self-hosted identity management secure enough?
Keycloak has been used in production by banks, governments, and large enterprises. The software is audited and hardened. The risk shifts from “can I trust Okta’s infrastructure?” to “can I run and maintain my own infrastructure?” For teams with competent ops, self-hosting is equally secure and eliminates third-party breach risk.
Can I use Keycloak with all the same apps I use with Okta?
Any app that supports standard OIDC or SAML will work with Keycloak. You’ll need to manually configure each integration rather than using Okta’s pre-built catalog, but the protocols are the same.
Which self-hosted IdP is closest to Okta?
Keycloak. It has the broadest feature overlap: SAML, OIDC, LDAP federation, user lifecycle, MFA, admin console, and user self-service. Authentik is a close second with a better UI but less enterprise maturity.
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