ZITADEL
SuperTokensSuperTokens vs ZITADEL: Which Self-Hosted Auth Solution Is Better in 2026?
Quick Verdict
Choose ZITADEL if...
Best for B2B SaaS platforms, multi-tenant applications, and teams that need enterprise SSO (SAML/SCIM) on day one.
Choose SuperTokens if...
Best for single-product startups and teams that want auth as code inside their existing backend, not as a separate service.
If you've decided to ditch Auth0 or Firebase Auth for an open-source self-hosted alternative, you've almost certainly landed on a shortlist of two: SuperTokens and ZITADEL. Both are 2019-era startups, both are open-source, both promise zero vendor lock-in, and both can be self-hosted or used as managed cloud services. That's where the similarities end.
SuperTokens is an SDK-first auth library — you install it into your existing backend, configure recipes (email/password, passwordless, social), and it lives inside your app. ZITADEL is an identity platform — you deploy it as a standalone service, point your apps at it via OIDC/SAML, and it acts as your identity provider. That single architectural difference cascades into nearly every meaningful tradeoff: complexity, multi-tenancy depth, pricing model, customization ceiling, and who should actually use each one.
This comparison is for engineering teams who've already crossed the open-source threshold and are now choosing between these two specifically. We won't waste your time re-litigating whether you should leave Auth0 — if you're reading this, you've already decided. Instead, we'll focus on the architectural fit, the real cost over 12 months, multi-tenancy capabilities, and the use cases where each one is genuinely the right pick. For broader context, see our identity & access tools category.
We've evaluated both on the criteria that actually matter for self-hosted deployments: deployment complexity, B2B multi-tenancy support, protocol coverage (OIDC, SAML, SCIM), pricing transparency at scale, and developer experience. Here's the honest breakdown.
Quick Verdict
- Choose SuperTokens if: you want auth bolted into your existing Node.js/Python/Go backend with minimal infrastructure overhead, your multi-tenancy needs are modest, and you'd rather code customizations than configure a separate service.
- Choose ZITADEL if: you need a standalone identity provider with deep B2B multi-tenancy (think thousands of customer organizations), SAML/SCIM enterprise SSO, and you're building a platform where auth is centralized across many apps.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | SuperTokens | ZITADEL |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | SDK + core service embedded in your backend | Standalone identity provider (OIDC/SAML IdP) |
| OIDC/OAuth 2.0 | Yes (as relying party) | Yes (full IdP) |
| SAML support | Limited (paid feature, less mature) | First-class, built-in |
| SCIM provisioning | No | Yes, built-in |
| Passwordless | Magic links, OTP via email/SMS | Passkeys, FIDO2, magic links |
| MFA | TOTP | TOTP, passkeys, biometrics, security keys |
| Multi-tenancy | Supported (paid tier) — per-tenant configs | Built for it — millions of orgs natively |
| Social login | Google, GitHub, Apple, Facebook, custom OAuth | Identity brokering across any OIDC/SAML IdP |
| Hosted login UI | Limited prebuilt components | Fully brandable hosted login pages |
| Audit logs | Basic | Full event sourcing, immutable event log |
| Self-hosting | Docker, K8s, source | Docker, K8s, source, IaC modules |
| SDKs | Node, Python, Go, PHP + frontend SDKs | Node, Go, Python, Java, .NET + frontend |
| API-first | Yes | Yes (gRPC + REST) |
| Time to first login | Hours (drop-in recipes) | Half-day to day (deploy + config) |
Pricing Comparison
Both tools offer free self-hosted tiers and managed cloud, but the pricing models differ significantly. SuperTokens uses MAU-based pricing (monthly active users), while ZITADEL uses DAU-based pricing (daily active users) — and DAU is typically 10-30% of MAU, which changes the math more than it first appears.
| Plan | SuperTokens | ZITADEL |
|---|---|---|
| Free self-hosted | Unlimited users, all core features | Unlimited (community edition) |
| Free managed cloud | Up to 5,000 MAUs | Up to 100 DAU, 1 instance |
| Paid entry | $0.02/MAU after 5K (managed) | $100/month for 25,000 DAU |
| MFA included on free? | Self-hosted yes, cloud paid only | Yes, even on free |
| Multi-tenancy on free? | Paid feature | Yes, even on free |
| Enterprise | Custom (10K+ MAUs, 2hr SLA) | Custom (dedicated TAM, custom SLA) |
Cost at 50,000 MAUs (~10,000 DAU at 20% DAU/MAU ratio):
- SuperTokens managed cloud: ~$900/month (5K free + 45K × $0.02)
- ZITADEL Pro: $100/month flat (well under the 25K DAU cap)
Cost at 500,000 MAUs (~100,000 DAU):
- SuperTokens managed cloud: ~$9,900/month
- ZITADEL: Enterprise tier (custom pricing, but significantly cheaper than per-MAU)
At scale, ZITADEL's DAU-based pricing is dramatically cheaper. SuperTokens is cheaper at the very low end (under 5K MAUs) where ZITADEL Pro's $100/month flat fee kicks in for any custom domain or extra IdP needs.
Self-hosting both is free in licensing — your real cost becomes infrastructure (database, compute, monitoring) and DevOps time.
Full Pricing Tiers
SuperTokens:
- Self-Hosted (Open Source) — $0/month: Unlimited monthly active users, all core authentication features, email/password & passwordless login, social OAuth 2.0, session management, community support.
- Managed Cloud Free — $0/month: Up to 5,000 MAUs, all core features, managed infrastructure & updates, on-demand scalability, email support.
- Managed Cloud Scale — $0.02/MAU after 5K: Unlimited MAUs, all core + paid features (MFA, multi-tenancy, RBAC), priority support via Slack & email.
- Enterprise — Custom: Volume discounts for 10K+ MAUs, dedicated support with 2-hour SLA, Slack/Teams/video call support, custom deployment, SSO & advanced security.
ZITADEL:
- Free — $0/month: 100 daily active users, 1 instance, SSO, MFA, passkeys, OIDC & SAML support, community support, hosted login page.
- Pro — $100/month: 25,000 daily active users, 3 identity providers, custom domain, 99.5% uptime SLA, extended support, pay-as-you-go billing.
- Enterprise — Custom: Cloud or self-hosted deployment, custom support SLA, tailored volume pricing, Technical Account Manager, custom threat analysis, custom metrics & monitoring.
Detailed Reviews
Now that you've seen the feature and pricing comparison at a glance, here's the deeper look at each platform — how they fit specific use cases, where they shine, and where they fall short.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | ZITADEL | SuperTokens |
|---|---|---|
| Single Sign-On (SSO) | ||
| Multi-Factor Authentication | ||
| Multi-Tenancy | ||
| Identity Brokering | ||
| Passwordless Authentication | ||
| Event-Driven Architecture | ||
| Customizable Login UI | ||
| SCIM Provisioning | ||
| Actions & Workflows | ||
| Role-Based Access Control | ||
| Email & Password Authentication | ||
| Social & OAuth 2.0 Login | ||
| Session Management | ||
| User Management Dashboard | ||
| Multi-Tenancy Support |
Pricing Comparison
| Pricing | ZITADEL | SuperTokens |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | ||
| Starting Price | $100/month | 0.02/MAU after 5K |
| Total Plans | 3 | 4 |
ZITADEL- 100 daily active users
- 1 instance
- SSO, MFA, Passkeys
- OIDC & SAML support
- Community support
- Hosted login page
- 25,000 daily active users
- 3 identity providers
- Custom domain
- 99.5% uptime SLA
- Extended support
- Pay-as-you-go billing
- Cloud or self-hosted deployment
- Custom support SLA
- Tailored volume pricing
- Technical Account Manager
- Custom threat analysis
- Custom metrics & monitoring
SuperTokens- Unlimited monthly active users
- All core authentication features
- Email/password & passwordless login
- Social OAuth 2.0 login
- Session management
- Community support
- Up to 5,000 monthly active users
- All core authentication features
- Managed infrastructure & updates
- On-demand scalability
- Email support
- Unlimited monthly active users
- All core + paid features
- Multi-factor authentication
- Multi-tenancy
- Role-based access control
- Priority support via Slack & email
- Volume discounts for 10K+ MAUs
- Dedicated support with 2-hour SLA
- Slack, MS Teams & video call support
- Custom deployment options
- SSO & advanced security features
Detailed Review
ZITADEL is a full identity platform built around the OIDC-as-a-service model. You deploy it as a standalone service, and all your apps talk to it via standard protocols (OIDC, SAML, SCIM). The killer feature is its multi-tenancy: ZITADEL is architected from the ground up to support millions of customer organizations, each with their own branding, identity providers, MFA policies, and user pools. This is exactly what B2B SaaS needs — and it's not bolted on, it's the default.
Where ZITADEL really separates itself for self-hosted use cases is the event-sourced architecture. Every authentication event, every config change, every user mutation is stored as an immutable event. That means you get a complete audit trail by default, you can stream events to external systems via webhooks, and you can rebuild state from event history if something goes wrong. For regulated industries (fintech, healthtech, anything that gets audited), this is a massive advantage over storing flat user records.
The SCIM provisioning and first-class SAML support also matter more than they sound. The moment your B2B SaaS gets its first enterprise prospect, they'll want to bring their own IdP (Okta, Azure AD) and provision users via SCIM. ZITADEL handles this on day one. SuperTokens makes you wait for the paid tier and the feature is less mature.
Pros
- Built for B2B multi-tenancy from day one — supports millions of organizations natively
- First-class SAML and SCIM support out of the box, critical for enterprise SaaS deals
- Event-sourced architecture gives complete audit trails for compliance-heavy industries
- Fully brandable hosted login pages — no need to build your own auth UI
- DAU-based pricing is dramatically cheaper at scale than MAU-based competitors
Cons
- Steeper learning curve if your team isn't familiar with event-driven identity architectures
- Heavier infrastructure footprint than SuperTokens (database + eventstore + search)
- Smaller ecosystem and community compared to Auth0 or Okta
SuperTokens takes the opposite architectural approach: rather than running a standalone identity provider, you install SuperTokens directly into your backend application as an SDK. You pick which 'recipes' you need — email/password, passwordless, social OAuth, session management — and they integrate as middleware in your existing Node.js, Python, Go, or PHP backend. There's a small core service that handles state, but the auth logic lives in your app.
This architecture is a strength for the right team. If you're a startup building a single product and you want auth that feels native to your stack, SuperTokens is faster to implement than ZITADEL. You can have working email/password login in your existing Express or FastAPI backend in a few hours. The recipes are well-designed, the SDKs are clean, and the session management is genuinely best-in-class — automatic detection of session theft, built-in protection against XSS/CSRF, and a token rotation strategy that works without you thinking about it.
Where SuperTokens shows its limits is when you grow beyond a single app. Because auth lives inside your backend, sharing identity across multiple services is awkward — you end up either deploying SuperTokens into each service (with shared core) or building your own internal identity layer on top. Multi-tenancy works but feels bolted-on compared to ZITADEL. SAML and SCIM are available but less mature. If you're certain you'll only ever have one or two apps, this isn't an issue. If you're building a platform, you'll eventually hit a wall.
Pros
- Fastest time-to-first-login for single-app deployments — auth integrates directly into your existing backend
- Best-in-class session security with automatic session theft detection and token rotation
- Generous free self-hosted tier with unlimited MAUs and all core features
- Clean, well-documented SDKs across Node, Python, Go, and PHP with first-class TypeScript support
- Modular recipe architecture lets you enable only the auth features you actually use
Cons
- Architecturally weaker for multi-app platforms — auth lives inside each backend rather than as a standalone IdP
- SAML and SCIM are paid features and less mature than ZITADEL's implementation
- Per-MAU managed cloud pricing gets expensive fast at scale (50K+ MAUs)
Our Conclusion
After weighing both platforms across architecture, features, pricing, and developer experience, here's how to decide:
Pick SuperTokens if:
- You're a single-product team adding auth to one or two apps
- Your backend is Node.js, Python, or Go and you want auth living inside it
- You don't need SAML or SCIM (yet)
- You'd rather write code than configure a separate identity service
- Multi-tenancy is a future concern, not a launch requirement
Pick ZITADEL if:
- You're building a B2B SaaS platform where customer orgs need self-service identity
- You need SAML, SCIM, or enterprise SSO out of the box
- You operate multiple apps that all need centralized auth
- You expect to scale past 50K MAUs (the pricing math is dramatically better)
- You value a hosted, brandable login page over coded UI components
The honest tiebreaker: if you're not sure, deploy ZITADEL. Its model — standalone IdP your apps talk to via OIDC — is the industry-standard architecture and will scale gracefully as your stack grows. SuperTokens is excellent but locks you into a specific pattern where your backend and auth are tightly coupled. That's fine until it isn't.
Next step: spin up the free tier of each (ZITADEL Cloud Free or SuperTokens managed) and implement a single login flow in both. You'll know within an afternoon which one matches your team's mental model. For more open-source alternatives in this space, see our best Auth0 alternatives or browse the full identity & access category. If you're still on the fence about leaving managed auth entirely, our open-source vs managed auth breakdown covers the deeper tradeoffs.
What to watch in 2026: Both teams are investing heavily in passkeys and FIDO2 compliance. ZITADEL is ahead on enterprise governance features (audit logs, SCIM, SAML), while SuperTokens is faster on developer-experience improvements and SDK breadth. If your needs lean enterprise, ZITADEL's roadmap is more aligned. If you're optimizing for developer velocity, SuperTokens will likely stay ahead.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is SuperTokens or ZITADEL more secure?
Both have strong security models. SuperTokens has built-in protection against XSS, CSRF, session fixation, and automatic session theft detection. ZITADEL uses event-sourced architecture for complete audit trails and supports FIDO2/passkeys natively. Neither has had a major public security incident. For high-compliance environments (SOC 2, ISO 27001), ZITADEL's audit logging is more mature out of the box.
Can I migrate from Auth0 to SuperTokens or ZITADEL?
Yes, both support user migration. SuperTokens has documented Auth0 migration guides and lets you import users with hashed passwords intact. ZITADEL supports bulk user import via API and can act as a federated identity provider during migration. ZITADEL's SAML support makes it easier if you have enterprise SSO connections to preserve.
Which is easier to self-host?
SuperTokens is slightly easier for small deployments — it's essentially an SDK plus a core service container that talks to your database. ZITADEL is a full identity platform with more moving parts (database, search, eventstore) but ships with first-party Helm charts and Terraform modules, making it more turnkey for production Kubernetes deployments at scale.
Does SuperTokens support SAML?
SAML is available in SuperTokens but as a paid feature with less maturity compared to ZITADEL. If SAML is a day-one requirement (which it often is for B2B SaaS selling to enterprises), ZITADEL is the clearer fit — it treats SAML as a first-class protocol alongside OIDC.
Which has better multi-tenancy?
ZITADEL is built for multi-tenancy at scale, supporting millions of organizations with per-tenant branding, identity providers, and access policies. SuperTokens added multi-tenancy as a paid feature and supports it well for moderate use cases, but ZITADEL's architecture is purpose-built for B2B platforms where every customer is its own tenant with its own admin and IdP configuration.
What's the real cost difference at scale?
At 50,000 MAUs, SuperTokens managed cloud costs ~$900/month versus ZITADEL Pro at $100/month flat. At 500,000 MAUs, SuperTokens approaches $10,000/month while ZITADEL moves to custom enterprise pricing typically much lower per-user. If you self-host both, the cost is purely infrastructure — and ZITADEL's resource footprint is slightly heavier but more predictable under load.
Can I use both together?
Theoretically yes, but you'd never want to. They solve the same problem at different architectural layers. Pick one. Running both means double the maintenance, double the security audits, and a confused user-identity model.