# Ory Kratos

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Ory Kratos and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Open-source identity server covering login, registration, recovery and MFA, with a password migration hook. Critics often find configuration and documentation hard.

## Why people recommend it

- Works well and does the job (2 comments): "It worked pretty well but in hindsight I would have hosted it as a separate application because it was a pain to bring along all of its dependencies." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915626)) "It works and does the job." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45917301))
- Easy frontend integration and dynamic forms (2 comments): "you can easily integrate them on the frontend when using Kratos" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45918205)) "Their dynamic forms stuff is really cool too" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915868))

## What people warn about

- Hard to deploy with many dependencies (3 comments): "It worked pretty well but in hindsight I would have hosted it as a separate application because it was a pain to bring along all of its dependencies." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915626)) "We did eventually get it to work but had to change the sample docker deployment a fair bit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48766439)) "their hard dependency on Docker is a showstopper for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45918180))
- Configuration and documentation are poor (2 comments): "I had a very hard time implementing browser flows, configuration is a mess" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45918943)) "Exactly our experience (poor documentation)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45920585))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Keycloak](https://hackerapproved.com/p/keycloak.md): 44 recommend
- [Authentik](https://hackerapproved.com/p/authentik.md): 14 recommend
- [FreeIPA](https://hackerapproved.com/p/freeipa.md): 14 recommend
- [Okta](https://hackerapproved.com/p/okta.md): 11 recommend
- [Microsoft Entra](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-entra.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Ory Kratos", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ory-kratos/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).