In simple English
This tool lets you build a central login page for all the web apps you run. Users sign in once with a password or a security key. It then lets them reach every service without logging in again. You control all the user accounts on your own server. It costs you time to set up and maintain, but keeps your data away from giant cloud companies.
What it is
authentik is a self-hosted identity provider (a central service that checks who users are and lets them into other apps). It supports standard sign-in protocols like OpenID Connect and SAML.
What it is good for
Solo builders and small teams who host multiple private apps and want one central place for user accounts, passwords and access rules.
- Replaces commercial login services with your own setup.
- Supports modern sign-in protocols used by most self-hosted software.
- Includes a web dashboard to manage users and view logs.
- Requires Docker (a way to run a program inside its own sealed box, so it cannot break anything else on your server) and some server knowledge to run.
- Needs at least 2 GB of memory to run reliably, so check your server has room.
- Uses a custom licence for enterprise parts, which may limit commercial use.
Okta or Auth0
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curl -O https://goauthentik.io/docker-compose.yml docker compose up -d