authentik · Identity and SSO
Self-hosting authentik for 25 people: the cost
At 25 users, authentik needs 2.6 GB of memory and 10.2 GB of disk. That fits the Starter 4 GB at VPSServer for $22.00 a month. Add backups and the time it takes to look after and the real figure is $139 a month.
- Server
- $22.00Starter 4 GB, 2 vCPU
- Backups
- $4.40provider snapshots
- Your time
- $1121.5 h a month at $75
- All in
- $139per month
- First-time setup
- $450about 6 hours, once
How 2.6 GB was arrived at
2 GB covers the stack at rest, every container the project ships included. 25 users at 3 MB each adds 0.1 GB, giving 2.1 GB. Adding 25% headroom so the machine is not run at its ceiling gives 2.6 GB, and the smallest plan at or above that is the Starter 4 GB with 4 GB.
Disk works the same way: 10 GB to begin with, plus 0.01 GB per user, so 10.2 GB against the 80 GB the plan includes.
Server plus worker, PostgreSQL and Redis. Friendlier than Keycloak for proxy-style protection of apps that have no native SSO support.
Over three years
| Period | Server and backups | Your time | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup, once | — | $450 | $450 |
| Per month | $26.40 | $112 | $139 |
| First year | $317 | $1,800 | $2,117 |
| 36 months | $950 | $4,500 | $5,450 |
If you do not price your own time, the 36-month figure is $950 instead. Both numbers are real; which one applies depends on whether the hours would otherwise have been billable.
What you would be paying instead at this size
| Commercial product | Tier | Per month | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auth0 | Essentials (B2B) | $150 | $11.10 | breakdown |
| Okta Workforce Identity | Starter | $150 | $11.10 | breakdown |
| Clerk | Pro | $25.00 | -$114 | breakdown |
A positive difference means self-hosting is cheaper at this size, with your time already counted.
Where to put authentik
2.6 GB of memory and 10.2 GB of disk is what this needs at 25 people. The cheapest plan that fits, among the providers whose prices we have read ourselves, is the Starter 4 GB at VPSServer for $22.00 a month.
We are not claiming this is the cheapest server on the internet. It is the cheapest one we can honestly quote. Hetzner Cloud, Vultr and PikaPods publish prices we could not read programmatically, and Hetzner in particular is usually cheaper per gigabyte of memory than anything quoted above. Price them yourself before you commit.
The VPSServer link above is an affiliate link, run through the same programme as our Kamatera link; VPSServer and Kamatera belong to the same group. If you sign up through it we may earn a commission, but the programme does not state an amount for VPSServer. That never changes the computed costs, which server is chosen, or the conclusion of this page. The sizing model and every price source are published in full.
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