Ory Keto is pure Zanzibar. WardenAuth is ReBAC without the operational burden.
Ory Keto is a faithful implementation of Google's Zanzibar paper for relationship-based access control. It does one thing — relationship tuples and check/expand APIs — and does it well. But Zanzibar is an infrastructure project: you run Keto, the database it needs, and build the management UX on top. WardenAuth gives you managed ReBAC (relationship tuples) alongside RBAC, ABAC, audit, and multi-tenancy — no infrastructure to run.
Overview
Ory Keto is part of the Ory ecosystem (alongside Hydra for OAuth, Kratos for identity). It's a purpose-built Zanzibar implementation that handles relationship-based access control — check, expand, and list APIs over relationship tuples.
But Keto is infrastructure, not a platform. You deploy it, configure the database, handle migrations, set up monitoring, and build the entire user-facing authorization management experience yourself. WardenAuth provides managed ReBAC with a visual dashboard, RBAC, ABAC, audit logging, and API keys — all from one API.
Ory Keto — Strengths
- Faithful Zanzibar implementation — standard check/expand/list APIs
- Part of the broader Ory ecosystem (Hydra, Kratos, Oathkeeper)
- Open-source with Apache 2.0 license
- Supports subject sets and wildcards in relationships
- gRPC and REST APIs available
Ory Keto — Limitations
- Complex to operate — requires running multiple services + database
- Zanzibar-only — no RBAC or ABAC built in (must layer on top)
- No management dashboard or UI
- No audit log — requires separate implementation
- No multi-tenancy primitives — must model namespaces manually
- Learning curve for relationship tuple modeling
- No managed cloud offering from Ory
Pricing comparison
| Scenario | Ory Keto | WardenAuth |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | Free (self-hosted, Apache 2.0) | Free (50K checks, unlimited tenants) |
| Infrastructure cost | ~$100-300/mo (compute + database) | $79/mo (Starter) |
| Management UI build | Engineering time (weeks) | Included |
| Audit + logging | Must build separately | Included (30-day retention) |
| Combined RBAC + ReBAC | Must combine with Ory Keto + custom layer | Included — single API |
Feature comparison
| Feature | Ory Keto | WardenAuth |
|---|---|---|
| Relationship tuples (ReBAC) | ||
| Fine-grained RBAC | ||
| ABAC / attribute conditions | ||
| Built-in management dashboard | ||
| Audit trail (40+ event types) | ||
| API key management | ||
| Multi-tenant scopes (unlimited) | ||
| Deny-wins semantics | ||
| SoD / Approval workflows | ||
| Webhooks | ||
| SSO / SCIM | Included (Business+) | |
| Managed infrastructure | ||
| Flat-rate pricing | Free (self-hosted) | |
| gRPC API |
Use case guide
Choose Ory Keto if you're already invested in the Ory ecosystem (Hydra + Kratos + Keto), need a pure Zanzibar implementation you control completely, or have dedicated infrastructure engineering capacity to run it at scale.
Choose WardenAuth if you want relationship-based access control (ReBAC) without running a Zanzibar instance. If you also need RBAC, ABAC, audit trails, and a management dashboard — and would rather get all of them from one API than stitch together multiple Ory services.
Ory Keto is the right choice if you need a pure, self-hosted Zanzibar implementation and have the infrastructure team to operate it. But for most teams building B2B SaaS products, the combination of managed ReBAC + RBAC + ABAC + audit + multi-tenancy in a single flat-rate platform makes WardenAuth the more practical choice. You get relationship-based access control without becoming a Zanzibar operator.
See for yourself — no credit card required.