Best Free Identity and Access Management Tools in 2026
Auth0 still has the broadest free tier for a hosted platform, 25,000 monthly active users with SSO and SCIM included, while Keycloak remains the default answer when you want identity infrastructure with zero recurring cost, self-hosted and fully open source. Clerk is the fastest path to production-ready auth for a modern web app, Ory and Zitadel cover the open-source, API-first end of the market, and FusionAuth gives you unlimited users self-hosted for free. WorkOS and Stytch are built for adding enterprise SSO to an existing app without rebuilding your auth stack, and Duo Security covers multi-factor authentication for small teams at no cost up to 10 users.
Authentication, single sign-on, and user management platforms that let a small team ship real login and authorization without a security budget.
Identity and access management used to mean a six-figure enterprise contract. That is no longer true for a developer building login, SSO, or role-based access into a new product. Of the 10,000+ tools Toolradar tracks, 25 in the Identity and Access category offer a genuine free tier, and this guide narrows that list to the platforms that actually fit a developer or small team shipping authentication, single sign-on, user management, or authorization, not password vaults or consumer security apps.
We verified each tool's current free-tier limits directly against its 2026 pricing page, confirmed which open-source picks can be self-hosted without a license fee, and dropped anything whose free plan is a time-limited trial rather than a permanent tier.
Top Picks
Picked by editorial review, informed by G2 and Capterra review volume and rating and by media mentions, the signals behind our category rankings. How we rate
| Tool | Starting price | Rating | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auth0 | From $240/mo | 4.5 424 reviews | Teams that want a hosted, enterprise-tested identity platform without paying until they scale |
| Keycloak | Free | n/a | Teams that want full control over their identity stack with zero per-user licensing cost |
| Clerk | From $20.83/mo | 4.8 126 reviews | Developers who want production-ready login screens and user management without building UI from scratch |
| Ory | Free plan | 4.5 50 reviews | Engineering teams that want headless, API-driven identity with an open-source core |
| FusionAuth | From $125/mo | 4.6 161 reviews | Teams that want unlimited users on a free plan and are comfortable running their own infrastructure |
| WorkOS | Free plan | 4.5 15 reviews | SaaS teams adding enterprise SSO and directory sync without replacing their existing auth system |
| Stytch | Free plan | 4.8 37 reviews | Developers who want granular, API-first control over passwordless auth, SSO, and fraud prevention |
| Duo Security | From $3/mo | 4.6 1,051 reviews | Small teams that need strong MFA on existing logins without adding a full identity platform |
| Zitadel | Free plan | n/a | Teams that want a modern, API-first open-source IAM platform with a usable free cloud plan |
| Logto | Free plan | n/a | Developers who want an open-source Auth0 alternative with a permissive license and a simple free tier |
Teams that want a hosted, enterprise-tested identity platform without paying until they scale
- Pro: Free plan covers up to 25,000 monthly active users, far above most competitors' free caps
- Pro: Free tier includes 1 enterprise connection, self-service SSO, and SCIM provisioning, features usually gated to paid plans elsewhere
- Pro: Unlimited social connections and passwordless authentication included at no cost
- Con: Cheapest paid plan (Essentials) starts at $35/month for B2C but only covers 500 MAUs, a steep step up once you outgrow the free tier
- Con: B2B Essentials pricing jumps to $150/month for the same 500 MAU allowance
Auth0's free tier at 25,000 MAUs is the most generous in the identity space, far ahead of Firebase Auth (free at 50K MAUs but with fewer features) and Clerk (500 MAUs free).
Watch out
The free plan lacks separate development and production environments. Running auth against production data during development is a real compliance and security risk that most teams eventually pay to fix.
Teams that want full control over their identity stack with zero per-user licensing cost
- Pro: Fully open source under Apache 2.0, with no user limits and no license fee ever
- Pro: CNCF incubating project, backed by Red Hat's commercial build for teams that want paid support
- Pro: Supports SAML, OIDC, LDAP integration, and full role-based access control out of the box
- Con: No hosted option from the Keycloak project itself; you run and patch the server yourself
- Con: Admin console UI and initial setup are noticeably more technical than hosted competitors like Auth0 or Clerk
Keycloak's pricing is exceptionally generous, being entirely free as an open-source solution.
Developers who want production-ready login screens and user management without building UI from scratch
- Pro: Free Hobby plan supports up to 50,000 monthly retained users (MRU), a generous cap for a hosted platform
- Pro: Unlimited applications on the free plan, with up to 3 dashboard seats for a small team
- Pro: Prebuilt, customizable UI components for sign-in, sign-up, and user profile cut integration time significantly
- Con: Pro plan starts at $25/month billed monthly ($20/month billed annually) once you need custom branding or advanced features
- Con: Billing by monthly retained users means growth in returning users, not just signups, drives cost
Clerk offers the most developer-friendly auth with 50K free users, enough for most startups to reach revenue before paying.
Watch out
MRU counts retained users, not active, deleted users still count until month resets
Engineering teams that want headless, API-driven identity with an open-source core
- Pro: Core components (Kratos, Hydra, Keto) are open source under the permissive Apache 2.0 license
- Pro: Free Developer cloud plan includes unlimited social connections, passkeys, and OAuth2/OIDC provider support
- Pro: Fully headless architecture means no vendor UI lock-in; you build your own login screens against the API
- Con: Cloud Production plan starts at $770/year (about $64/month), a large jump from the free Developer plan
- Con: Free plan caps live analytics history at 24 hours and limits team members to 1
Ory's pricing is quite fair, offering a generous Free tier for up to 25,000 users, which is significantly higher than many competitors.
Watch out
Overage fees for users beyond Growth tier's included amount
Teams that want unlimited users on a free plan and are comfortable running their own infrastructure
- Pro: Community plan is free to self-host with no limit on total users
- Pro: Covers core authentication standards including OAuth2, OIDC, SAML, and passwordless login at no cost
- Pro: Community support available through forums, Slack, and GitHub
- Con: Starter cloud plan costs $162/month billed annually, a significant jump from the free self-hosted tier
- Con: Premium features like breached password detection and machine-to-machine authentication are paid-only
FusionAuth offers a generous free Community tier, making it highly accessible.
SaaS teams adding enterprise SSO and directory sync without replacing their existing auth system
- Pro: Free tier covers the first 1 million monthly active users through AuthKit, an unusually high ceiling
- Pro: Free plan includes passkeys, MFA, magic auth, social login, and enterprise SSO, not just basic email and password
- Pro: First 1,000 Radar fraud-protection checks are free each month
- Con: Enterprise SSO connections are billed separately at $125 per connection per month once you exceed included limits
- Con: Pay-as-you-go SSO pricing can get expensive quickly for a platform selling to many enterprise customers at once
WorkOS offers a generous freemium model for AuthKit (first 1M users free) and Radar (first 1K checks free), making it very accessible for startups.
Developers who want granular, API-first control over passwordless auth, SSO, and fraud prevention
- Pro: Free plan supports 10,000 monthly active users and AI agents
- Pro: Includes 5 SSO/SCIM connections and 1,000 machine-to-machine tokens at no cost
- Pro: 10,000 free fraud-prevention device fingerprints per month included on the free tier
- Con: Pay-as-you-go pricing beyond free limits has no published flat tier, making cost forecasting harder
- Con: Additional SSO/SCIM connections cost $125 per connection once past the 5 included
Stytch's pricing is quite fair and generous, especially with a robust free tier offering 5,000 MAUs.
Watch out
No explicit mention of overage fees beyond MAU
Small teams that need strong MFA on existing logins without adding a full identity platform
- Pro: Free plan supports up to 10 users at no cost, including strong MFA and a free authenticator app
- Pro: Backed by Cisco's security infrastructure and integration library
- Pro: Duo Essentials starts at just $3 per user per month, one of the lowest entry prices in this category
- Con: Free plan is capped at 10 users, unworkable for anything beyond a founding team
- Con: Focused primarily on MFA and SSO rather than full user management or customer-facing authentication
Duo Security's pricing is fair, offering a generous free tier for up to 10 users.
Teams that want a modern, API-first open-source IAM platform with a usable free cloud plan
- Pro: Free plan supports 100 daily active users with unlimited total user storage and unlimited organizations
- Pro: Includes all core security features and 3 identity provider connections on the free tier
- Pro: Self-hostable, with a full-featured admin console comparable to hosted competitors
- Con: Zitadel switched its core license from Apache 2.0 to AGPL 3.0 with its v3 release, which carries copyleft obligations if you modify and redistribute it
- Con: Free tier's 100 daily active user cap is measured daily, not monthly, so it's tighter than it first appears
This structure is best for organizations ranging from small startups to large enterprises seeking flexible identity management solutions.
Developers who want an open-source Auth0 alternative with a permissive license and a simple free tier
- Pro: Free plan covers up to 50,000 monthly active users, matching or beating most hosted competitors
- Pro: Licensed under MPL-2.0, a permissive open-source license that avoids AGPL-style copyleft obligations
- Pro: Free tier includes 3 applications, 1 machine-to-machine app, and 3 social connectors
- Con: Free plan limits audit log retention to 3 days and allows only 1 custom domain and 1 webhook
- Con: Pro plan starts from $24/month and bills extra token usage at $0.08 per 100 tokens beyond the included 50,000
Logto's Free tier is quite generous, offering 50,000 MAU and 50K tokens, which is more than many competitors.
Watch out
Overage fees for MAU/tokens beyond free tier
What Is Identity and Access Management Software?
Identity and access management (IAM) software handles who a user is (authentication) and what they are allowed to do (authorization) inside an application. That covers login flows (email and password, social login, passkeys), single sign-on (SSO) so a user logs in once across multiple apps, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and role-based or attribute-based access control that decides which resources a given user can reach.
For developers this usually shows up as a hosted platform like Auth0, Clerk, WorkOS, or Stytch, that you integrate via SDK and API rather than build from scratch. For teams that need full control over their data or want to avoid per-user pricing at scale, open-source options like Keycloak, Ory, Zitadel, and FusionAuth provide the same building blocks self-hosted.
Why Identity and Access Management Matters
Building authentication in-house is a common early mistake. Password hashing, session management, SSO protocols like SAML and OIDC, and MFA all have well-documented failure modes, and a breach in a homegrown auth system is far more expensive than the tool that would have prevented it. Offloading identity to a dedicated platform also unblocks enterprise sales: many B2B buyers require SSO before they will sign a contract, and adding it after the fact to a custom auth system is a significant rebuild.
The free tiers in this category exist because vendors want developers building on their platform before they scale into paid usage. That makes this a rare case where a genuinely capable product, not a crippled demo, is available at zero cost for a real early-stage product.
Key Features to Look For
Single sign-on (SSO) support (Essential)
SAML and OIDC connections that let a user log into your app with their company's identity provider. Some free tiers include one enterprise connection; others gate SSO entirely behind a paid plan.
Passwordless and multi-factor authentication (Essential)
Passkeys, magic links, and MFA reduce account-takeover risk and are increasingly expected by users and enterprise buyers alike.
Free-tier billing unit and cap (Essential)
Free tiers are capped by monthly active users, daily active users, or total self-hosted users. Know which metric applies before you estimate what a growth spike will cost.
Self-hosting and open-source license (Important)
Keycloak, Ory, FusionAuth Community, Zitadel, and Logto can run on your own infrastructure. Check the license: Apache 2.0 and MPL-2.0 are permissive, AGPL carries copyleft obligations if you modify and redistribute.
Role-based and attribute-based access control (Important)
Beyond login, most platforms let you define roles, organizations, and permissions so authorization logic doesn't have to live entirely in your own code.
SDK and framework coverage (Nice to have)
Native SDKs for React, Next.js, mobile, and backend languages cut integration time from days to hours compared to hand-rolling OAuth flows.
Mistakes to Avoid
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Assuming 'open source' means no licensing considerations. Zitadel's AGPL 3.0 license carries copyleft obligations that Keycloak's Apache 2.0 or Logto's MPL-2.0 do not.
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Treating SSO as a later problem. Adding SAML or OIDC to an app that wasn't built with it in mind is a significant rework; check whether your platform's free tier includes at least one enterprise connection before you need it.
- ×
Picking a platform based on free-tier user cap alone without checking what's excluded. Some free plans cap MFA, SCIM, or audit logs even when the user limit looks generous.
Expert Tips
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If data residency or long-term cost control matters more than setup speed, start with Keycloak, Ory, or FusionAuth Community and budget engineering time for hosting instead of a per-MAU bill.
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Layer Duo Security or another dedicated MFA tool on top of an existing login system if you only need stronger authentication, not a full identity platform migration.
The Bottom Line
There is no universal best free identity and access management tool, only the right fit for your hosting preference and scale. Auth0 and Clerk offer the most generous free tiers among hosted platforms, Keycloak and FusionAuth are the strongest picks when you want to self-host for free, and WorkOS and Stytch are built specifically for bolting enterprise SSO onto an app you've already built. Of the 10,000+ tools Toolradar tracks, 25 in the Identity and Access category offer a genuine free tier, and every pick here lets a small team ship real authentication before paying a cent.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free identity and access management tool?
Is Keycloak completely free?
Yes. Keycloak is open source under the Apache 2.0 license with no user cap and no license fee. You pay only for the infrastructure you run it on, or optionally for Red Hat's commercially supported build if you want an SLA.
What's the difference between Auth0, Clerk, and WorkOS?
Auth0 is a general-purpose hosted identity platform with the broadest feature set. Clerk focuses on developer experience with prebuilt UI components for modern web apps. WorkOS is built specifically for adding enterprise SSO and directory sync to an app that already has its own authentication, rather than replacing it.
Can I self-host these tools to avoid per-user pricing?
Keycloak, Ory's core components, FusionAuth Community, Zitadel, and Logto can all be self-hosted for free. Check the license before heavy customization: Keycloak and Ory use permissive Apache 2.0, Logto uses MPL-2.0, and Zitadel moved to AGPL 3.0 in 2025, which carries copyleft obligations if you modify and redistribute it.
Do free identity and access management plans include single sign-on (SSO)?
It varies. Auth0's free plan includes one enterprise SSO connection and SCIM provisioning. WorkOS and Stytch include SSO connections in their free usage allowances too. Clerk's free Hobby plan does not include SSO; that requires a paid plan. Self-hosted options like Keycloak and Zitadel support SSO protocols at no license cost regardless of scale.
Cite this page: Toolradar, "Best Free Identity and Access Management Tools in 2026", updated August 2026, https://toolradar.com/guides/best-free-identity-access-tools
Sources
Prices and plan details on this page come from each vendor's own pricing page, re-checked by the Toolradar pricing tracker:
- Auth0 pricing, checked
- Keycloak pricing, checked
- Clerk pricing, checked
- Ory pricing, checked
- FusionAuth pricing, checked
- WorkOS pricing, checked
- Stytch pricing, checked
- Duo Security pricing, checked
- Zitadel pricing, checked
- Logto pricing, checked
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