Self-host authentik
An open-source identity provider supporting SAML, OAuth2/OIDC, and LDAP — a flexible, self-hostable alternative to Auth0, Okta, and Azure AD with a visual flow-based login builder.
Key facts
Pick authentik when you want a modern, full identity provider you can shape to almost any login flow — SAML, OAuth2/OIDC, LDAP, SCIM, and a built-in proxy for apps that have no auth of their own. It's the self-hoster's favourite full IdP; if you only need to gate a few existing apps behind SSO and 2FA, Authelia is far less to run.
Follow the authentik deploy guide →What you need
- Any VPS with at least 2048 MB of RAM
- A domain you control — most self-hosted setups need HTTPS in front of them
- About an afternoon — budget time for troubleshooting
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Install
Run these commands on your server:
# authentik — official compose.yml + generated secrets
wget https://docs.goauthentik.io/compose.yml
echo "PG_PASS=$(openssl rand -base64 36 | tr -d '\n')" >> .env
echo "AUTHENTIK_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 60 | tr -d '\n')" >> .env
docker compose up -d # → http://SERVER_IP:9000What you take on
authentik is powerful because it's a real identity platform — which is exactly why it demands care:
An alternative to
Head-to-head
A tiny forward-auth gate vs. a full identity provider.
Modern and self-hoster-friendly vs. the enterprise standard.
A full identity platform vs. a passkey-only sign-in box.
A full identity platform vs. the tiniest possible login gate.
Two modern IdPs, built for different jobs.
