FusionAuth vs WorkOS

FusionAuth is a customer identity platform built around a free, self-hostable Community Edition and flexible deployment (self-hosted, cloud, on-premises,…

Best for FusionAuth: Teams that need to self-host identity for compliance, air-gapped, or on-premises requirements will find FusionAuth's free Community Edition (deployable via ZIP, DEB, RPM, Docker, or Kubernetes) fits that requirement directly, something WorkOS does not offer.
Best for WorkOS: B2B SaaS teams that want a large free ceiling before paying anything (AuthKit free up to 1 million MAU) and need broad enterprise identity provider coverage (20+ IdPs including Okta, Azure AD, and Google) are well served by WorkOS.

At a Glance

 FusionAuthWorkOS
Primary categorySecuritySecurity
RatingNot documentedNot documented
Pricing modelFreemium (self-hosted free tier plus flat-rate subscription tiers)usage-based
Starting priceFree (Community edition, self-hosted); paid plans from about $162/monthFree tier available through AuthKit; Single Sign-On and Directory Sync start at 125 US dollars per connection per month with automatic volume discounts
Free planYesYes
Free trialNot documentedNot documented
PlatformsNot documentedNot documented
Team collaborationNot documentedNot documented
AI featuresNot documentedNot documented
Public APIYesYes

Key Differences

Self-Hosting vs. Managed-Only

FusionAuth: FusionAuth offers a free, fully self-hostable Community Edition deployable via ZIP, DEB, RPM, Docker, or Kubernetes, plus support for on-premises, hybrid, and air-gapped deployments.

WorkOS: WorkOS is not documented as offering a self-hosted option; its architecture is API-first, delivered as a hosted cloud service with AuthKit as the primary user-facing product.

Organizations with data residency, compliance, or offline requirements need self-hosting, which only one of these platforms provides.

Free Tier Ceiling

FusionAuth: FusionAuth's free tier is the self-hosted Community Edition with core authentication features; its cheapest managed cloud plan, Starter, costs $162/month billed annually.

WorkOS: WorkOS's AuthKit is free for the first 1 million monthly active users in production, and staging environments are always free regardless of usage.

The gap between a free self-hosted tier and a free-to-1M-MAU cloud tier changes the cost calculus for early-stage teams that don't want to run their own infrastructure.

Enterprise SSO Pricing Model

FusionAuth: FusionAuth's SSO and enterprise tenant management capabilities are bundled into its Enterprise cloud plan, which starts at $2,970/month billed annually.

WorkOS: WorkOS bills SSO and Directory Sync per connection on a tiered scale, from $125/connection for 1-15 connections down to $50/connection for 101-200 connections, with custom pricing above 200.

A flat enterprise-tier price versus per-connection billing produces very different cost curves depending on how many enterprise customers a company signs.

Fraud and Bot Protection

FusionAuth: FusionAuth's documented security features focus on MFA, passkeys, and breached password detection (paid plans); a dedicated fraud/bot protection feature is not documented.

WorkOS: WorkOS includes Radar, real-time protection against bots, fraud, and abuse, with the first 1,000 checks included free each month.

Built-in fraud detection reduces the need for a separate third-party risk tool during signup and login flows.

24/7 Support Availability

FusionAuth: FusionAuth includes 24/7 phone and email support along with a private Slack channel only on its Enterprise plan (starting at $2,970/month).

WorkOS: WorkOS offers video call support, onboarding guidance, and a 1-hour P1 response time through its $1,000/month Scale Support plan, with 24/7 SLAs reserved for custom Enterprise contracts.

The price point at which round-the-clock or guaranteed-response support becomes available differs significantly between the two platforms.

Feature-by-Feature

Pricing & Free Tier

FeatureFusionAuthWorkOS
Free self-hosted editionAvailableUnavailable
Free managed cloud tierUnavailableAvailable
Cheapest paid cloud planAvailableAvailable

Authentication & Identity Features

FeatureFusionAuthWorkOS
Passwordless / magic linksAvailableAvailable
PasskeysAvailableAvailable
Directory Sync (HR/corporate directory)Not documentedAvailable
Fraud/bot protectionNot documentedAvailable
Self-serve IT admin portalNot documentedAvailable

Deployment & Support

FeatureFusionAuthWorkOS
Self-hosted / on-premises deploymentAvailableUnavailable
Air-gapped deploymentAvailableUnavailable
24/7 phone supportAvailableNot documented
Audit log export/SIEM streamingNot documentedAvailable

Pricing Compared

Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.

FusionAuth

Community — $0 N/A (self-hosted only)
Starter — From approximately $162/month Monthly or Annual
Essentials — Custom (reported around $790+/month) Annual
Enterprise — Custom (reported up to approximately $2,970+/month) Annual

WorkOS

Free — $0 Monthly
SSO and Directory Sync — From $125 per connection per month Monthly, per enterprise connection
Enterprise Add-Ons — Custom pricing Custom

Pros & Cons

FusionAuth

Pros

  • Free, full-featured Community edition for unlimited users when self-hosted
  • Flat-rate pricing avoids unpredictable per-MAU costs as user base scales
  • Deployment flexibility spans self-hosted, on-premises, hybrid, air-gapped, and cloud
  • Broad identity standards support (SAML, OIDC, LDAP, SCIM) in one platform

Cons

  • Self-hosting requires more infrastructure and operations effort than a pure SaaS product
  • Upper-tier Essentials and Enterprise pricing is not fully transparent and varies by source
  • Smaller company and support organization than Okta or Auth0
  • Java-centric architecture may be a less natural fit for teams standardized on other stacks

WorkOS

Pros

  • Dramatically cuts the engineering time needed to become enterprise ready with SSO and SCIM
  • Connection-based pricing scales predictably regardless of end-user count per enterprise customer
  • Broad identity provider coverage reduces one-off integration work
  • Widely adopted by leading AI and developer-tooling companies, signaling strong reliability at scale
  • Free tier lets early-stage companies adopt core auth before enterprise features are needed

Cons

  • Per-connection pricing can become expensive as a company signs many enterprise customers
  • Primarily aimed at B2B SaaS companies, offering less value for consumer-facing products
  • Requires engineering integration work, unlike fully no-code identity tools
  • Advanced modules like fine-grained authorization and Radar add further cost on top of SSO and Directory Sync

Use Cases

Choose FusionAuth: Teams that need to self-host identity for compliance, air-gapped, or on-premises requirements will find FusionAuth's free Community Edition (deployable via ZIP, DEB, RPM, Docker, or Kubernetes) fits that requirement directly, something WorkOS does not offer.
Choose WorkOS: B2B SaaS teams that want a large free ceiling before paying anything (AuthKit free up to 1 million MAU) and need broad enterprise identity provider coverage (20+ IdPs including Okta, Azure AD, and Google) are well served by WorkOS.
Need both: There's little practical scenario for running both on one application since they solve the same identity problem. The more realistic split is a company using WorkOS's free AuthKit for its primary cloud product while a separate internal or air-gapped tool runs a self-hosted FusionAuth Community Edition where cloud identity providers aren't viable.

FusionAuth

  • Regulated industry identity compliance — A healthcare or financial services company self-hosts FusionAuth to keep identity data entirely within its own infrastructure for compliance and data-sovereignty requirements.
  • Cost predictability at scale — A high-growth consumer app switches from a per-MAU SaaS identity vendor to FusionAuth's flat-rate pricing to control costs as its user base grows into the millions.
  • Replacing a difficult Keycloak deployment — A team running an aging, hard-to-maintain Keycloak instance migrates to FusionAuth for better documentation, support, and a more modern feature set while retaining self-hosting control.

WorkOS

  • Closing Enterprise Sales Deals — A SaaS startup integrates WorkOS SSO and Directory Sync to satisfy a large customer's security review requirements and close the deal.
  • AI Application Enterprise Readiness — AI companies use WorkOS to quickly add SOC 2-aligned authentication and access controls as they move upmarket from individual users to enterprise buyers.
  • Centralizing Multi-Tenant User Management — Product teams use WorkOS User Management APIs to manage organizations, roles, and permissions across a multi-tenant application.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does FusionAuth or WorkOS have a free plan?

Both do, but differently: FusionAuth's Community Edition is free to self-host, while WorkOS's AuthKit is a free managed cloud service for up to 1 million monthly active users in production.

Can I self-host WorkOS the way I can self-host FusionAuth?

No. WorkOS is not documented as offering a self-hosted option; FusionAuth's Community Edition can be deployed via ZIP, DEB, RPM, Docker, or Kubernetes.

How does enterprise SSO pricing compare?

WorkOS charges per SSO connection starting at $125 (dropping to $50 at higher volumes), while FusionAuth bundles enterprise SSO capabilities into its Enterprise cloud plan starting at $2,970/month.

Which platform has built-in fraud or bot protection?

WorkOS includes Radar, with the first 1,000 fraud/bot checks free each month. FusionAuth does not document an equivalent named feature.

Which is cheaper for an app with under 1 million users?

WorkOS's AuthKit is free up to 1 million MAU in production, making it likely cheaper for a cloud-hosted app below that threshold, unless the team needs FusionAuth's self-hosting instead.

What support options does each offer?

FusionAuth includes 24/7 phone and email support only on its Enterprise plan ($2,970+/month). WorkOS offers video call support and a 1-hour P1 response time via its $1,000/month Scale Support plan, with full 24/7 SLAs on custom Enterprise contracts.

Read the full FusionAuth review · Read the full WorkOS review