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FreeIPA

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Keycloak

612
1.2K
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FreeIPA vs Keycloak: What are the differences?

Developers describe FreeIPA as "Manage Linux users and client hosts in your realm from one central location with CLI, Web UI or RPC access". FreeIPA is an integrated Identity and Authentication solution for Linux/UNIX networked environments. A FreeIPA server provides centralized authentication, authorization and account information by storing data about user, groups, hosts and other objects necessary to manage the security aspects of a network of computers. On the other hand, Keycloak is detailed as "An open source identity and access management solution". It is an Open Source Identity and Access Management For Modern Applications and Services. It adds authentication to applications and secure services with minimum fuss. No need to deal with storing users or authenticating users. It's all available out of the box.

FreeIPA belongs to "Operating Systems" category of the tech stack, while Keycloak can be primarily classified under "User Management and Authentication".

FreeIPA is an open source tool with 317 GitHub stars and 186 GitHub forks. Here's a link to FreeIPA's open source repository on GitHub.

Advice on FreeIPA and Keycloak
Needs advice
on
KeycloakKeycloakOktaOkta
and
Spring SecuritySpring Security

I am working on building a platform in my company that will provide a single sign on to all of the internal products to the customer. To do that we need to build an Authorisation server to comply with the OIDC protocol. Earlier we had built the Auth server using the Spring Security OAuth project but since in Spring Security 5.x it is no longer supported we are planning to get over with it as well. Below are the 2 options that I was considering to replace the Spring Auth Server. 1. Keycloak 2. Okta 3. Auth0 Please advise which one to use.

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Replies (3)
Luca Ferrari
Solution Architect at Red Hat, Inc. · | 5 upvotes · 152.2K views
Recommends
on
KeycloakKeycloak

It isn't clear if beside the AuthZ requirement you had others, but given the scenario you described my suggestion would for you to go with Keycloak. First of all because you have already an onpremise IdP and with Keycloak you could maintain that setup (if privacy is a concern). Another important point is configuration and customization: I would assume with Spring OAuth you might have had some custom logic around authentication, this can be easily reconfigured in Keycloak by leveraging SPI (https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/index.html#_auth_spi). Finally AuthZ as a functionality is well developed, based on standard protocols and extensible on Keycloak (https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/authorization_services/)

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Sandor Racz
Recommends
on
KeycloakKeycloak

We have good experience using Keycloak for SSO with OIDC with our Spring Boot based applications. It's free, easy to install and configure, extensible - so I recommend it.

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Recommends
on
KeycloakKeycloak

You can also use Keycloak as an Identity Broker, which enables you to handle authentication on many different identity providers of your customers. With this setup, you are able to perform authorization tasks centralized.

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Pros of FreeIPA
Pros of Keycloak
  • 1
    Manages sudo command groups and sudo commands
  • 1
    Manages host and host groups
  • 32
    It's a open source solution
  • 23
    Supports multiple identity provider
  • 15
    OpenID and SAML support
  • 10
    Easy customisation
  • 9
    JSON web token
  • 5
    Maintained by devs at Redhat

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Cons of FreeIPA
Cons of Keycloak
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 7
      Okta
    • 6
      Poor client side documentation
    • 5
      Lack of Code examples for client side

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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is FreeIPA?

    FreeIPA is an integrated Identity and Authentication solution for Linux/UNIX networked environments. A FreeIPA server provides centralized authentication, authorization and account information by storing data about user, groups, hosts and other objects necessary to manage the security aspects of a network of computers.

    What is Keycloak?

    It is an Open Source Identity and Access Management For Modern Applications and Services. It adds authentication to applications and secure services with minimum fuss. No need to deal with storing users or authenticating users. It's all available out of the box.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use FreeIPA?
    What companies use Keycloak?
    See which teams inside your own company are using FreeIPA or Keycloak.
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    What tools integrate with FreeIPA?
    What tools integrate with Keycloak?

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    What are some alternatives to FreeIPA and Keycloak?
    Centrify
    It is privileged identity management and identity as a service solutions stop the breach by securing access to hybrid enterprises through the power of identity services.
    OpenLDAP
    It is a free, open-source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. Lightweight Directory Access is an application protocol that is used to crosscheck information on the server end.
    Ubuntu
    Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers.
    Debian
    Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software.
    CentOS
    The CentOS Project is a community-driven free software effort focused on delivering a robust open source ecosystem. For users, we offer a consistent manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, we offer a solid, predictable base to build upon, along with extensive resources to build, test, release, and maintain their code.
    See all alternatives