Ory Kratos is a headless cloud-native identity and user management system written in Go that centralizes authentication and user workflows for applications.
The tool solves the problem of reimplementing identity logic across services by providing an API-first platform that handles login, registration, account recovery, verification, multi-factor authentication, and profile management as centralized flows. Applications consume these capabilities over HTTP APIs rather than building their own. The system supports multiple authentication methods including passkeys, social sign-in, OIDC, magic links, SMS, SAML, and TOTP.
Teams migrating from Auth0, Okta, or similar providers can use Ory Kratos alongside Ory Hydra, where Hydra provides OAuth2 and OpenID Connect protocol support while Kratos handles identity and user-facing flows. This combination allows applications to continue using existing OAuth2 and OIDC protocols while replacing the underlying identity provider. The tool is designed for cloud-native environments like Kubernetes and can scale to support large numbers of identities. It offers both managed deployment through Ory Network and self-hosted options.
The project maintains active discussion channels and documentation. Development shows consistent engagement with identity management features and cloud-native deployment patterns. The codebase reflects attention to API design and integration with modern authentication standards. The project provides migration guidance for teams moving away from commercial identity platforms.
