Keycloak vs Clerk

Compare Keycloak and Clerk side by side across authentication methods, user management, compliance, security, and developer integration features.

Keycloak🇺🇸

Clerk🇺🇸

Keycloak supports 67 of 104 tracked features, Clerk supports 63.

Feature Comparison

Authentication Methods

Username and Password
Social Sign-in
Passkey
Email Passwordless
Phone Passwordless
Magic Link
Anonymous / Guest

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP)
HMAC-based One-Time Password (HOTP)
Universal 2nd Factor (U2F)
WebAuthn
Email Code
Phone Code
Recovery Code
Push Notification
Adaptive / Risk-Based MFA
Cisco Duo
Step-Up Authentication

Integration Protocols

OpenID Connect (OIDC)
SAML 2.0
WS-Federation
Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Authentication

Identity Federation

OpenID Connect (OIDC) Federation
SAML 2.0 Federation
Active Directory / LDAP
Azure Active Directory (Entra ID)

Access Control & Authorization

Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC)
Fine-Grained Authorization (FGA / ReBAC)
API Authorization (Scopes / Permissions)

Security

Audit Log Retention
Audit Log Streaming
Security Center (Threat Monitoring Dashboard)
Encryption at Rest
Encryption in Transit
Customer Managed Keys (BYOK)
Bot Detection
Brute Force Protection
Suspicious IP Throttling
Breached Password Detection
Credential Guard (Dark Web Monitoring)
Tenant Access Control List (IP ACL)
Device Fingerprinting

Multi-Tenancy / Organizations

Per-Organization Branding
Per-Organization MFA Policy

Branding & UX

Hosted / Universal Login Page
Embedded / Native Login Components
White-Label / Full Brand Removal
Localization / i18n
Prebuilt UI Components (SDK)

Analytics & Audit

Login / Auth Analytics Dashboard

Compliance

SOC 2 Type II Certification
ISO 27001 / 27017 / 27018 Certification
HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA)
PCI DSS Compliance
CSA STAR Certification
FedRAMP Authorization
GDPR: Data Export (Portability)
GDPR: Right to be Forgotten (User Deletion)
Consent Management
Region Deployment
Private Cloud Deployment
AWSAzureGCP

Developer Integration

SDK Coverage
Management API
Authentication API Rate Limits
Actions / Extensibility Pipeline
TypeScript Support in Extensibility
Custom Domain
Deploy CLI (Infrastructure as Code)
Terraform Provider
Custom Database Connections
Native Webhook Support
Universal Login / Hosted Login Page Customization
Custom Email Provider (SMTP)
Email Templates
Custom OIDC Claims / Token Enrichment

Advanced / Differentiators

No-Code Auth Flow Builder / Orchestration
Identity Verification / Document Proofing
Decentralized / Verifiable Credentials
Built-in Billing / Subscription Management
Agentic AI / MCP Server Authentication

Looking for a different comparison? See the full (C)IAM Identity Providers benchmark.

Looking for their OpenID Connect protocol compatibility? Compare Keycloak vs Clerk on OpenID Connect.

Note: The current data is based on provider documentation/experience and may not be 100% accurate. Please open an issue if you have spotted any inconsistencies.