OpenFGA is a free, fully open-source, self-hosted-only authorization engine focused on Zanzibar-style relationship-based access control, while Permit.io is a…
Best for OpenFGA: Engineering teams comfortable self-hosting and operating their own OpenFGA server, for example via Docker, who want a free, CNCF-governed, Zanzibar-style relationship-based authorization engine with no licensing cost.
Best for Permit.io: Teams that want a managed option out of the box, a UI for building RBAC/ABAC/ReBAC/PBAC policies and approval workflows, plus AI-specific features like the MCP Gateway and Guardian Agents, with a free Community plan up to 1,000 monthly active users.
At a Glance
OpenFGA
Permit.io
Primary category
Security
Security
Rating
Not documented
Not documented
Pricing model
Open Source
Freemium
Starting price
Free
Free (up to 1,000 monthly active users); paid plans from $5/month
Free plan
Not documented
Yes
Free trial
Not documented
Not documented
Platforms
Not documented
Web
Team collaboration
Not documented
Not documented
AI features
Not documented
Yes
Public API
Yes
Yes
Key Differences
Hosting Model
OpenFGA: OpenFGA has no managed hosted offering documented on openfga.dev and must be self-hosted, for example via Docker.
Permit.io: Permit.io offers both a managed cloud service and self-hosted/on-premises deployment.
Teams without ops capacity for running their own authorization server need a managed option available out of the box.
Commercial Support
OpenFGA: OpenFGA is community-supported only; formal commercial support is not part of its core open-source offering.
Permit.io: Permit.io offers paid tiers with dedicated Slack support (Pro) and a dedicated customer success representative (Enterprise).
Production systems handling authorization decisions often need a vendor support relationship for incident response.
Policy Model Foundation
OpenFGA: OpenFGA uses its own Zanzibar-inspired authorization modeling language for relationship-based access control.
Permit.io: Permit.io is built on the open-source OPA and OPAL projects and supports RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC, and PBAC through a UI and API.
The underlying policy model affects how much of a learning curve a team faces and what existing tooling it can reuse.
AI-Specific Tooling
OpenFGA: OpenFGA does not document AI-agent-specific features.
Permit.io: Permit.io provides a dedicated MCP Gateway and Guardian Agents for AI agent authorization and anomaly monitoring.
Teams building AI agent products need explicit tool-access governance, not just general-purpose authorization checks.
Pricing
OpenFGA: OpenFGA is entirely free with no paid plans at all.
Permit.io: Permit.io is freemium, with a free Community plan up to 1,000 MAU and paid Startup ($5/month) and Pro ($25/month) tiers.
A zero-cost open-source tool versus a freemium SaaS with paid tiers changes long-term budget planning.
Feature-by-Feature
Deployment & Hosting
Feature
OpenFGA
Permit.io
Managed cloud hosting
Unavailable
Available
Self-hosted server (e.g., Docker)
Available
Available
Free tier / free forever
Available
Available
Policy Model & Tooling
Feature
OpenFGA
Permit.io
Zanzibar-inspired ReBAC modeling
Available
Not documented
RBAC / ABAC / ReBAC / PBAC support
Limited
Available
UI for policy management
Not documented
Available
Multi-language SDKs
Available
Not documented
AI Agent Features
Feature
OpenFGA
Permit.io
MCP Gateway / AI agent access governance
Not documented
Available
AI anomaly monitoring
Not documented
Available
Commercial vendor support
Unavailable
Available
Pricing Compared
Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.
OpenFGA
Open Source (Self-Hosted) — Free N/A
Permit.io
Community — Free N/A
Startup — From $5/month Monthly or yearly (18% discount)
Pro — From $25/month Monthly or yearly (18% discount)
Enterprise — Custom (contact sales) Custom
Pros & Cons
OpenFGA
Pros
Fully open source and free with no licensing cost for the core engine
Backed by Okta and Grafana Labs engineers under transparent CNCF governance
Handles ReBAC, RBAC, and ABAC authorization patterns in a single unified system
Built for low-latency performance at scale, following Google's proven Zanzibar model
Broad SDK and integration support across popular languages and identity providers
Cons
Requires engineering effort to design and self-host an authorization model correctly
Steeper learning curve than simple built-in framework authorization for teams new to ReBAC concepts
No official first-party managed OpenFGA hosting outside of Okta's separate Auth0 FGA product
Smaller ecosystem than long-established authorization libraries baked into specific frameworks
As an infrastructure component, it adds an additional service to operate and monitor in production
Permit.io
Pros
Generous free tier (1,000 monthly active users with full feature access)
Visual, low-code policy editor lowers the barrier to implementing fine-grained access control
Supports RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC and PBAC models in one platform
Ready-made embeddable UI components speed up building permission-management screens
GitOps workflow fits naturally into existing CI/CD pipelines
Cons
Hosted-first architecture means less control than a fully self-hosted, open-source alternative
Costs can scale quickly as monthly active users and tenants grow beyond the free and Startup tiers
Enterprise features like HIPAA and GDPR compliance support and multi-cloud deployment require custom Enterprise pricing
Smaller company (reported around 14-25 employees) than some enterprise-focused competitors
Advanced compliance certifications such as SOC 2 Type II are gated behind the paid Pro tier
Use Cases
Choose OpenFGA: Engineering teams comfortable self-hosting and operating their own OpenFGA server, for example via Docker, who want a free, CNCF-governed, Zanzibar-style relationship-based authorization engine with no licensing cost.
Choose Permit.io: Teams that want a managed option out of the box, a UI for building RBAC/ABAC/ReBAC/PBAC policies and approval workflows, plus AI-specific features like the MCP Gateway and Guardian Agents, with a free Community plan up to 1,000 monthly active users.
Need both: Unlikely as parallel production deployments since both solve the same authorization problem, but a team might prototype quickly on OpenFGA's free self-hosted server before evaluating whether Permit.io's managed layer and UI tooling justify moving to a paid plan.
OpenFGA
Multi-tenant SaaS permissions — Model complex organization, team, and resource-level permissions for a multi-tenant SaaS product using relationship-based access control.
Document and file sharing authorization — Implement nested sharing permissions, such as folder-level access that cascades to contained documents, similar to Google Drive.
API and microservices authorization — Centralize authorization checks across distributed microservices with low-latency permission evaluation.
Permit.io
Startup and scale-up access control — Early-stage engineering teams use Permit.io's free and Startup tiers to stand up fine-grained permissions quickly without building an in-house system.
AI agent and tool authorization — Teams building AI products use Permit.io to gate what autonomous agents and tools are allowed to do within an application.
Enterprise compliance-driven authorization — Larger organizations use Permit.io's Enterprise tier to meet HIPAA, GDPR and CCPA requirements while deploying across multi-cloud or on-premises environments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OpenFGA completely free?
Yes, it's free and open source with no licensing cost, self-hosted via Docker or similar.
Does OpenFGA offer a managed cloud version?
No, openfga.dev does not document a managed hosted offering.
Is Permit.io free to use?
Yes, its Community plan is free forever for up to 1,000 monthly active users.
Which tool has dedicated AI agent authorization features?
Permit.io, via its MCP Gateway and Guardian Agents. OpenFGA doesn't document AI-agent-specific tooling.
What authorization models do they support?
OpenFGA supports RBAC, ABAC, and ReBAC via Zanzibar-inspired modeling. Permit.io supports RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC, and PBAC via a UI, API, and infrastructure-as-code workflows.
Who maintains OpenFGA?
OpenFGA is a CNCF incubating project, originally created by Auth0/Okta and now maintained by a broader community including engineers from Grafana Labs and Gitpod.