Authentik vs Authelia: Which Is Better for DevOps Teams in 2025?
- Philip Moses
- Oct 28
- 3 min read
Looking for the best authentication tool for your DevOps workflow in 2025? You're not alone. Two popular open-source choices—Authentik and Authelia—are widely used to protect modern web applications. But which one is right for your team?
In this blog, we’ll explain the key differences between Authentik and Authelia, and help you decide which is better for your use case in 2025. Whether you're managing just a few apps or running an enterprise system, we’ll break it down in plain English.
Let’s dive in.
What Are Authentik and Authelia?
Before we compare them, let’s quickly explain what these tools do.
Authentik is an identity provider (IdP) that handles user logins across multiple applications. It supports modern authentication standards like SAML, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, and LDAP. It comes with a nice web dashboard, works well for large teams, and is full-featured.
Authelia is a lightweight authentication server that sits behind your web proxy (like NGINX or Traefik). It protects web apps using two-factor authentication (2FA/MFA) and secure login rules. It’s fast, simple, and ideal for small to mid-sized setups.
Authentik vs Authelia: Key Differences in 2025
1. ✅ Ease of Use
Authelia is easy to set up if you’re comfortable editing YAML files. There’s no GUI, but the install is quick and it uses very little memory.
Authentik takes more time to install but offers a user-friendly web interface and visual tools to manage users, policies, and apps.
Bottom line: Authelia is faster to install; Authentik is easier to manage long-term.
2. 🔐 Authentication Features
Authentik supports more protocols—like OAuth2, SAML, LDAP, and even RADIUS.
Authelia is mainly focused on OpenID Connect (OIDC) and secure two-factor login (TOTP, passkeys, etc.).
Bottom line: Choose Authentik if you need advanced login methods or enterprise app support. Choose Authelia for simple and strong protection for web apps.
3. ⚙️ DevOps and Self-Hosting
Both tools are designed for self-hosted environments, which is a big plus for DevOps teams who want control and privacy.
Authelia is super lightweight (under 30MB RAM). Perfect for Docker or Kubernetes clusters with limited resources.
Authentik is heavier (needs a PostgreSQL database) but scales better in large, multi-app systems.
Bottom line: Authelia works great for lean setups. Authentik fits larger, growing platforms.
4. 🌍 Community and Updates (as of 2025)
Authelia is fully open-source and community-led. In 2025, it became OpenID Certified and added support for passkeys.
Authentik is open-source but backed by a company, so it has optional paid support and a more formal roadmap.
Both projects are active and improving. You’ll find good documentation and GitHub support for either one.
Which One Should You Choose in 2025?
Here’s a simple comparison table:
Final Thoughts
If you’re a DevOps team in 2025 looking for a secure, modern way to manage user logins across your apps:
Go with Authelia if you want something lightweight, fast, and simple to deploy. Perfect for side projects, small teams, or people who prefer to work with config files.
Choose Authentik if you need full identity management, enterprise features, or an easy-to-use dashboard. It’s more powerful, but also more complex.
No matter which one you choose, both are great open-source authentication tools that fit well into a modern DevOps workflow in 2025.
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