Authelia Review, Pricing & Features

Authelia is a free, open-source SSO and multi-factor authentication portal for self-hosted apps, built to work with reverse proxies like Traefik.

Category: Security
Pricing: Free (open source), from Free
Verified: Not yet
Last updated: July 18, 2026
Founded: 2016

APIOpen SourceSelf-Hosted

Overview

Authelia is a free, open-source authentication and authorization server with a web login portal, first started in December 2016. It is licensed under Apache 2.0 and designed to be deployed behind a reverse proxy to add SSO and MFA to self-hosted applications.

Key Features

Authelia provides multi-factor authentication and single sign-on, certified OpenID Connect 1.0 support, passwordless login via Passkeys, WebAuthn, and one-time passwords, mobile push notifications for second-factor approval, login regulation against brute-force attacks, and granular access policies.

It is built in Go and React, with a compressed container image under 20MB and typical memory usage under 30MB, and supports high-availability deployments across multiple instances on platforms like Kubernetes.

Who It's For

Authelia is aimed at self-hosters, homelab operators, and DevOps or sysadmin teams who want a centralized SSO and MFA layer in front of internally hosted services, typically paired with reverse proxies such as Traefik.

Key Features

Single sign-on portal — Centralized login for multiple self-hosted applications behind a reverse proxy.
Multi-factor authentication — TOTP, WebAuthn/Passkeys, and mobile push notifications for second-factor approval.
Certified OpenID Connect provider — Officially certified OIDC 1.0 Provider implementation.
Brute-force login regulation — Rate-limits and blocks repeated failed login attempts.
Reverse proxy integration — Designed to work with proxies like Traefik, nginx, and Caddy.
Lightweight footprint — Compressed container under 20MB with typically under 30MB memory usage.
High-availability deployment — Supports running multiple parallel instances, including on Kubernetes.

Pros & Cons

Pros

Fully free and open source under Apache 2.0
Very lightweight resource footprint
Officially OpenID Certified
Strong integration with common reverse proxies

Cons

Requires self-hosting and reverse proxy configuration knowledge
No official managed/hosted version
Support is community-driven with no commercial support contracts

Pricing

Authelia
Free N/A

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Authelia free?

Yes, it is free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license.

Does Authelia require a reverse proxy?

Yes, it's designed to be deployed alongside a reverse proxy such as Traefik, nginx, or Caddy.

Is Authelia self-hosted only?

Yes, there is no managed cloud version; it must be self-hosted.

What authentication factors does it support?

Passwords, TOTP, WebAuthn/Passkeys, and mobile push notifications.

Comparisons

vs openarchiver

Related Tools

JavaScript is required for the full interactive experience. Please enable JavaScript for reviews, screenshots, and comparison tools.