ZenoAuth vs Keycloak
ZenoAuth delivers the same OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect capabilities as Keycloak in an 11 MB Rust binary — 27x smaller, with a fraction of the memory footprint and no JVM required.
How ZenoAuth and Keycloak compare across architecture, features, and operations.
| ZenoAuth | Keycloak | |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Rust | Java |
| Binary Size | 11 MB | 300+ MB |
| Memory Usage | ~50 MB | 500+ MB |
| External Dependencies | PostgreSQL only | PostgreSQL + Infinispan (+ optional Redis, LDAP) |
| Setup Time | Minutes | Hours |
| Docker Image | ~15 MB | ~450 MB |
| Configuration | Environment variables | XML + Admin Console |
| Verifiable Credentials | Native (OID4VCI + OID4VP) | Not available |
| SCIM v2 | Built-in bidirectional | Via extensions |
| OAuth 2.0 / OIDC | Full | Full |
| MFA | TOTP, WebAuthn, Passkeys | TOTP, WebAuthn |
| Admin UI | Next.js 15 | Freemarker templates |
Architectural decisions that eliminate operational complexity.
No JVM, no classpath issues, no WAR files. Download one binary, set your environment variables, and start serving authentication requests. Upgrades are a single file swap.
No Redis cluster to manage. No Infinispan cache to tune. ZenoAuth requires exactly one external dependency: PostgreSQL. Fewer moving parts means fewer failure modes.
Issue and verify W3C Verifiable Credentials with SD-JWT selective disclosure, OID4VCI issuance, and OID4VP wallet-based authentication. No other self-hosted IAM ships this natively.
No garbage collection pauses. No JVM warm-up time. Predictable, low-latency performance from the first request. Memory-safe by design without runtime overhead.
Keycloak is a mature, battle-tested platform. Here is where it excels.
Keycloak has been in production since 2014. It has extensive documentation, hundreds of community extensions, and a large pool of developers familiar with its configuration model.
As part of the Red Hat SSO product line, Keycloak offers enterprise support contracts, certified container images, and long-term maintenance releases backed by Red Hat.
Keycloak provides a deep theme engine with Freemarker templates covering every login screen, email template, and account management page. Full visual customization without forking.
Organizations with millions of users run Keycloak in production. Its clustering model with Infinispan is proven at scales that few open-source IAM platforms have reached.
Deploy ZenoAuth in minutes. Same standards, smaller footprint, simpler operations.