Ory Keto by ory
The most scalable and customizable permission server on the market. Fix your slow or broken permission system with Google's proven "Zanzibar" approach. Supports ACL, RBAC, and more. Written in Go, cloud native, headless, API-first. Available as a service on Ory Network and for self-hosters.
About Ory Keto
From the project's README at github.com/ory/keto. Lightly cleaned for readability; for the full source see the upstream repo.
Ory Keto is the first and most popular open source implementation of "Zanzibar: Google's Consistent, Global Authorization System". It provides a scalable, performant authorization server for managing permissions at scale.
<!-- START doctoc generated TOC please keep comment here to allow auto update --> <!-- DON'T EDIT THIS SECTION, INSTEAD RE-RUN doctoc TO UPDATE --> What is Ory Keto? Why Ory Keto Deployment options Use Ory Keto on the Ory Network Self-host Ory Keto Quickstart Who is using Ory Keto Ecosystem Ory Kratos: Identity and User Infrastructure and Management Ory Hydra: OAuth2 & OpenID Connect Server [Ory Oathke
Health score breakdown
6-dimension composite. See methodology for formula and weights.
Adoption signals
Real-world usage data, pulled from each registry. The bigger the numbers, the more battle-tested the project.
| Signal | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | 5.3k | github.com/ory/keto |
| GitHub forks | 380 | github.com/ory/keto |
Release & maintenance
Is this project actively maintained, or about to die? Check the recency of last commit and last release.
| Project age | 8.1 years | since Mar 2018 |
| Last commit | 3 days ago | May 4, 2026 |
| Releases shipped | 55 | last: 2 months ago |
| Security policy | SECURITY.md | declared by maintainers |
| Funding links | 2 | declared by maintainers |
Self-hosting cost across providers
Detected requirements: 4GB RAM, 40GB disk minimum. Cheapest plan per provider that meets the requirement.
| Provider | Plan | Specs | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| hetzner | CAX11 | 2c · 4GB · 40GB | $4.13 USD | Deploy → |
| vultr | VC2 | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $5 USD | Deploy → |
| linode | Nanode 1GB | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $5.12 USD | Deploy → |
| digitalocean | Basic Regular 1GB | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $6 USD | Deploy → |
Security advisories
CVE-2026-33505. What people say on Hacker News
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Ready to self-host Ory Keto?
Spin up a hetzner CAX11 (4GB RAM, 40GB disk) for $4.13/mo and follow the project's official install docs.
Data last refreshed May 7, 2026.
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