openarchiver vs Permify

openarchiver is an open-source, self-hosted platform for email backup, compliance, and eDiscovery with full-text search. Permify is an open-source,…

Best for openarchiver: openarchiver fits IT and compliance teams that need to archive email from Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or generic IMAP servers, or import historical PST/EML files, for backup, eDiscovery, and full-text search.
Best for Permify: Permify fits engineering teams building an application that needs a dedicated, self-hostable authorization service supporting RBAC, ABAC, and ReBAC in a single schema, with access checks reported as fast as 10ms.

At a Glance

 openarchiverPermify
Primary categorySecuritySecurity
RatingNot documentedNot documented
Pricing modelOpen SourceOpen Source
Starting priceFree (self-hosted)Free (self-hosted Community Edition)
Free planNot documentedYes
Free trialNot documentedNot documented
PlatformsNot documentedNot documented
Team collaborationNot documentedNot documented
AI featuresNot documentedNot documented
Public APINot documentedYes

Key Differences

Core Purpose

openarchiver: openarchiver archives email communications for backup, compliance, and eDiscovery, with full-text search across archived messages.

Permify: Permify centralizes authorization logic — RBAC, ABAC, and ReBAC — so applications don't need to hardcode permission checks per feature.

Confusing these categories wastes evaluation time; one is a data-archiving system, the other is developer infrastructure for access control.

Data Source Integrations

openarchiver: openarchiver connects directly to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, plus generic IMAP servers, and can import existing PST and EML files without a live mailbox connection.

Permify: Permify has no email or mailbox connectors documented — it works via its own schema language and API calls made from an application.

Direct connectors to major email platforms determine how easily an organization can start archiving without custom integration work.

Deployment Options

openarchiver: openarchiver is documented as a self-hosted platform, with no managed cloud version documented.

Permify: Permify offers both a free, self-hosted Community edition (AGPL-3.0) and a managed Permify Cloud with SOC2 and GDPR compliance across AWS, GCP, and Azure.

Having a managed cloud option removes hosting burden for teams that don't want to run infrastructure themselves.

Pricing Transparency

openarchiver: openarchiver is tagged as freemium, but no specific pricing plans or tiers are documented.

Permify: Permify documents two clear tiers: Community (free, self-hosted) and Permify Cloud (custom, usage-based).

Clearer tiering makes it easier to know what you get for free versus what requires payment before evaluating a tool.

Ownership and Backing

openarchiver: openarchiver's founding, company, and headquarters information is not documented in the available facts.

Permify: Permify was acquired by FusionAuth in November 2025, which has committed to keeping it open source, with a unified pricing model planned for 2026.

Knowing who backs and maintains open-source infrastructure affects confidence in its long-term support.

Feature-by-Feature

Core Capability

FeatureopenarchiverPermify
Email archiving & eDiscoveryAvailableUnavailable
Full-text search over archived dataAvailableUnavailable
Fine-grained authorization (RBAC/ABAC/ReBAC)UnavailableAvailable
Schema-as-code permission modelingUnavailableAvailable

Integrations & Import

FeatureopenarchiverPermify
Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace connectorsAvailableNot documented
Generic IMAP supportAvailableNot documented
PST/EML file importAvailableUnavailable

Deployment & Pricing

FeatureopenarchiverPermify
Self-hosted optionAvailableAvailable
Managed cloud optionNot documentedAvailable
Published pricing tiersNot documentedAvailable
Described as open sourceAvailableAvailable

Pricing Compared

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

openarchiver

Self-Hosted Community — Free N/A

Permify

Community Edition — Free N/A (self-hosted)
Managed / Enterprise (via FusionAuth) — Custom (contact sales) Custom

Pros & Cons

openarchiver

Pros

  • Fully open source with no license fee for the core platform
  • Full data ownership and sovereignty since everything is self-hosted
  • Tamper-evident storage and audit trails suited to compliance and eDiscovery needs
  • Supports major mail platforms including Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and IMAP
  • Portable .eml storage format avoids vendor lock-in

Cons

  • Requires self-hosting expertise and infrastructure to operate reliably
  • No official hosted cloud offering or published SaaS pricing tier
  • Smaller company and community compared to established commercial archiving vendors
  • Enterprise support depends on a partner program rather than a large in-house support team
  • Newer project with a shorter track record than long-established archiving suites

Permify

Pros

  • Free, self-hostable open-source core with no per-seat licensing costs
  • Handles complex, deeply nested permission relationships that simple role tables cannot express
  • Sub-millisecond to low-millisecond permission check performance at scale
  • Backed by FusionAuth's engineering resources and support organization since the 2025 acquisition
  • Active open-source community with frequent releases

Cons

  • AGPL-3.0 licensing can require legal review for companies embedding Permify in proprietary products
  • Steeper learning curve than basic RBAC libraries due to the relationship-based modeling approach
  • Public, self-serve pricing became less transparent after the FusionAuth acquisition
  • Requires teams to operate and maintain additional infrastructure unless using a managed offering
  • Long-term standalone product roadmap is now tied to FusionAuth's strategy

Use Cases

Choose openarchiver: openarchiver fits IT and compliance teams that need to archive email from Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or generic IMAP servers, or import historical PST/EML files, for backup, eDiscovery, and full-text search.
Choose Permify: Permify fits engineering teams building an application that needs a dedicated, self-hostable authorization service supporting RBAC, ABAC, and ReBAC in a single schema, with access checks reported as fast as 10ms.
Need both: An organization building an internal compliance platform could use Permify to control which employees or roles can access which archived mailboxes inside their own admin tooling, while using openarchiver as the underlying system that actually archives and indexes the email content.

openarchiver

  • Regulatory email retention — Meet legal and regulatory requirements to retain and produce email records for a defined retention period.
  • Litigation holds and eDiscovery — Search and export tamper-evident email archives with a verifiable chain of custody during legal disputes.
  • Self-hosted mailbox migration and backup — Archive mailboxes before decommissioning accounts or migrating between email platforms, preserving full-text searchable history.

Permify

  • Multi-tenant SaaS permissions — B2B SaaS platforms use Permify to manage per-tenant roles and permissions, so each customer organization can define its own access rules without custom code.
  • Fine-grained document and resource sharing — Teams building Google-Drive-like sharing features use Permify's ReBAC model to represent nested folder, workspace and delegated-access permissions.
  • Centralized compliance and audit trails — Security and compliance teams use Permify's permission-listing APIs to audit who has access to what across an application, supporting regulatory reviews.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are openarchiver and Permify competitors?

No. openarchiver archives email for compliance and eDiscovery, while Permify is an authorization engine for controlling access inside applications. They address different problems, though both are open-source and self-hostable.

Does openarchiver connect to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace?

Yes, along with generic IMAP servers and PST/EML file imports for historical archives without a live mailbox connection.

Is Permify free to use?

Yes, Permify's core Community edition is open source under AGPL-3.0 and can be self-hosted for free. A managed Permify Cloud option is also available with custom, usage-based pricing.

Does openarchiver publish its pricing?

No specific pricing plans are documented for openarchiver, even though it's tagged as freemium. Permify, by contrast, documents a free Community tier and a custom-priced Cloud tier.

Can openarchiver and Permify be used together?

Potentially — an organization could use Permify to govern who can access which archived mailboxes or search results inside a custom compliance tool, while openarchiver handles the underlying email archiving and full-text search.

Which tool offers a managed cloud version?

Permify offers Permify Cloud, a managed hosting option with SOC2 and GDPR compliance across AWS, GCP, and Azure. openarchiver does not document a managed cloud version.

Read the full openarchiver review · Read the full Permify review