We may earn a commission if you buy through links on this page. It never changes a score or a ranking. How we make money
It's a split decision.
Choose Okta if you want workforce identity products with published per-user plans, starting at $6 per user per month when billed annually. Choose Keycloak if your team can self-host and wants free identity software with no published seat limit. Keycloak’s license price is clear, but infrastructure costs are not. Okta’s Professional and Enterprise workforce prices are not published here, so compare quotes before assuming the $6 entry price covers your needs.
01Side by side
| Okta | Keycloak | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $6/user/month, billed annually | Free self-hosted software |
| Free plan | No free plan; 30-day trial | Free to download and use |
| Best for | Teams starting with workforce identity | Teams that can self-host identity software |
| Core strength | Workforce, customer, and AI-agent identity products | SSO, brokering, federation, and authorization |
| Learning curve | Review ease-of-use score: 7/10 | Review ease-of-use score: 5/10 |
| Integrations/data | Universal Directory; API and on-prem access on Enterprise | LDAP/AD, OIDC/SAML, and social login |
| Team/seat costs | Per-user pricing; higher-tier prices not published | Free software; infrastructure costs not published |
| Support | Review support score: 5/10 | Review support score: 5/10 |
Okta Choose Okta if
- Choose Okta if you need workforce identity plans.
- Choose Okta if SSO, MFA, and directory are priorities.
- Choose Okta if annual per-user pricing fits your budget.
Keycloak Choose Keycloak if
- Choose Keycloak if you can self-host identity software.
- Choose Keycloak if avoiding a software license charge matters.
- Choose Keycloak if LDAP, Active Directory, or social login fits.
02Pricing compared
Keycloak’s software is free to download and use under the Apache License 2.0, with self-hosting; the published pricing data lists no seat limit. That is not the same as a zero-cost deployment: infrastructure and operating costs are not published here. Okta’s Workforce Starter is listed at $6 per user per month, billed annually, and includes SSO, MFA, Universal Directory and five Workflows. Core Essentials is $14 per user per month, billed annually; Essentials is $17. Professional and Enterprise workforce prices are not published. Okta also lists a Customer Identity Enterprise base platform at $3,000 per month, while B2C and B2B suite prices are not published. Add-on prices are not published. Compare the Okta suite and add-ons you need against your own hosting costs; don’t treat its $6 entry tier as the price for every deployment.
03Features and depth
Okta covers workforce and customer identity, and its homepage also highlights identity products for AI agents. Workforce plans include SSO and MFA at Starter, while higher listed plans add items such as lifecycle management, access governance and privileged access. Okta lists API Access Management and Access Gateway on Enterprise; its Professional and Enterprise prices are not published. The product range also includes customer identity options, but many add-on prices are not published.
Keycloak focuses on application and service identity. Its feature set includes SSO, identity brokering to OpenID Connect or SAML providers, social login, and user federation with LDAP and Active Directory. Administrators can manage users, applications, identity providers and authorization policies in its console; users can manage profiles, passwords, two-factor authentication and sessions. Keycloak also offers fine-grained authorization policies. The published material describes a capable open-source IAM product, but does not list managed plans or paid support. The choice is less about a simple feature checklist than whether you want Okta’s priced product plans or self-hosted software.
04Ease of use and learning curve
Okta is the more straightforward starting point if you want to choose among workforce plans with listed features and per-user pricing. That does not make every required feature part of the $6 Starter tier: some capabilities are listed on higher plans or as add-ons, and several prices are unpublished.
Keycloak requires a team prepared to self-host and manage its deployment. That gives teams flexibility, but also puts more setup responsibility on them. The published reviews score Okta’s ease of use at 7 and Keycloak’s at 5; those scores are directional, not a guarantee for your environment. If you need the simplest setup, the published Keycloak review advises skipping it.
Questions people ask
Are Okta and OAuth the same?
No. The published material describes Okta as an identity and access management product, not as OAuth. It mentions OpenID Connect support for Keycloak identity brokering, but does not explain OAuth or compare the protocol with either product. Check the relevant product documentation for protocol-specific requirements.
Why is Keycloak so complicated?
The published material describes Keycloak as self-hosted software, so your team needs to take responsibility for deployment rather than choosing a listed Okta workforce plan. The review rates Keycloak’s ease of use at 5, versus 7 for Okta, but does not identify specific causes for that difference.
What is the difference between Keycloak and Auth0?
The published published material does not describe Auth0, so we can’t make a sourced feature, support or price comparison. It describes Keycloak as open-source, self-hosted identity software; Okta as a product range for workforce and customer identity. Check Auth0’s current documentation and pricing before comparing it.
Who is Okta’s biggest competitor?
The published material does not identify Okta’s biggest competitor or provide market-share data, so we can’t name one reliably. It does provide a comparison with Keycloak: Okta has listed workforce plans starting at $6 per user per month billed annually, while Keycloak is free software to self-host.