Clerk vs Keycloak
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Keycloak is the stronger AI pick in Identity & Access Management: it has a visibility score of 5.6 versus 3.1 for Clerk, and ranks ahead in 50% of the answers that name both.
Choose Clerk if…
- AI answers describe it more positively (56% vs 33% positive)
- You need SOC 2 Type 2 or HIPAA or GDPR (EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework) or CCPA coverage
- Free user management up to 1,000,000 MAUs
- Clear, modular per-connection pricing
Choose Keycloak if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (5.6 vs 3.1)
- Free and open-source software
- Strong flexibility and customization for technical teams
- Top pick as a self-hosted option
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | Clerk | Keycloak |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 3.1% | 5.6% |
| Change vs last week | up+1.6% | down−0.3% |
| Rank in Identity & Access Management | #22 | #15 |
| Share of voice | 1.3% | 2.1% |
| Mentions this run | 4 | 7 |
| Positive in AI answers | 56% | 33% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Clerk +0.6000000000000001pp · Keycloak −0.7000000000000002pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Keycloak leads on 2 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
2 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | Clerk | Keycloak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top identity and access management platform options for B2B SaaS companies | Perplexity | #6 | #7 |
| Best identity and access management platform for startups | Perplexity | #7 | #6 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Clerk | Keycloak |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based | — |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $25 / mo | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS) | Self-hosted; ships as a single lightweight container image, with clustering for scalability and availability |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, GDPR (EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework), CCPA | — |
| Support | Community Discord, Email support, Priority support, Dedicated technical account manager | Community support via GitHub Discussions, Commercial support via Red Hat build of Keycloak |
| Founded | 2019 | 2014 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, United States | — |
| Employees | 51–200 | — |
| Funding | Series C · $101M raised | — |
| Best for | Developers building React and Next.js apps who want prebuilt auth and user management, including B2B SaaS needing organizations and SSO | Teams that want to self-host standards-based single sign-on and identity brokering for their applications |
Plans side by side
Clerk
Keycloak
Pricing not available.
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Clerk
- Free user management up to 1,000,000 MAUs
- Clear, modular per-connection pricing
- Rapid development and developer experience
- Expanded support for B2B organizations and multi-tenancy
- Good fit for rapid MVP builds
Keycloak
- Free and open-source software
- Strong flexibility and customization for technical teams
- Top pick as a self-hosted option
- Backed by Red Hat and community; popular open-source IAM tool
- Supports SAML, OAuth 2.0, and OpenID Connect
- Team must handle hosting, upgrades, backups, and security
- Less operational simplicity than managed alternatives
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 98.8%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Clerk vs Keycloak”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/clerk-vs-keycloak, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.