# Keycloak: how AI models rank it, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Named in 25 judge labels across 5 categories by 12 of 14 models. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/keycloak

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Non-human identity management](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/identity/non-human-identity-management/index.md) | 4% | 9 | 0% | 2 |
| [Customer identity and access management](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/identity/customer-identity-and-access-management/index.md) | 4% | 7 | 20% | 15 |
| [Workforce identity and SSO](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/identity/workforce-identity-and-sso/index.md) | 0% | 21 | 40% | 5 |
| [Multi-factor authentication](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/identity/multi-factor-authentication/index.md) | 0% | 33 | 0% | 2 |
| [Identity governance](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/identity/identity-governance/index.md) | 0% | 37 | 0% | 1 |

## What the models said for it

- "Keycloak is widely regarded as the best non-human (machine-to-machine, service account, API, and workload) identity management platform for companies with limited budgets." (Grok 4.20, NHI management)
- "FusionAuth and Keycloak stand out because they offer free self-hosted options with no per-user fees" (Claude Haiku 4.5, CIAM)
- "Lowest cash spend, higher engineering effort: Keycloak" (GPT-5.4 mini, CIAM)
- "Keycloak or Casdoor for identity & SSO." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, NHI management)

## And against it

- "Keycloak or other self-hosted alternatives without dedicated SRE capacity. ... you inherit availability, upgrades, security response, and operational burden." (Perplexity Sonar, Workforce identity)
- "High Operational Burden: Open-source platforms like Keycloak are feature-complete... you assume 100% of the responsibility for hosting" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, CIAM)
- "Even popular tools like Keycloak (which has seen rising popularity) require significant engineering effort to maintain." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, CIAM)
- "Self-hosted options are free to license but expensive to operate securely" (Muse Glimmer 30B, Workforce identity)

## By model

| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Grok 4.20 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |

## Sources returned with these answers

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Keycloak, from 49 of the 63 answers that named it (only the models that return a source list).

### Domains cited

- securityboulevard.com: 21
- spotsaas.com: 17
- startwithidentity.com: 16
- expertinsights.com: 15
- g2.com: 15
- okta.com: 14
- gane.ai/index: 11
- capterra.com: 10
- descope.com: 10
- startupstash.com: 10

### Pages cited

- https://expertinsights.com/identity-and-access-management/top-customer-identity-and-access-management-ciam-solutions: 11
- https://startupstash.com/customer-identity-and-access-management-ciam-tools: 9
- https://g2.com/categories/customer-identity-and-access-management-ciam/small-business: 8
- https://descope.com/blog/post/ciam-solutions: 7
- https://spotsaas.com/list/customer-identity-and-access-management--ciam--software/for-small-business: 7
- https://securityboulevard.com/2025/12/top-ciam-for-smbs-secure-affordable-options: 6
- https://securityboulevard.com/2026/07/best-enterprise-authentication-solutions-in-2026: 6
- https://corma.io/blog/top-10-iam-solutions-for-smbs-and-mid-size-companies-2026: 5

## In its own words

What Keycloak's own pages state, read 2026-10-05. Stated by the vendor, not checked by the index.

- Positioning: the open source identity and access management solution (https://keycloak.org/)
- For: administrators and users (https://keycloak.org/)
- Customers named: IFTM, BRZ, CERN, OpenTalk, Hitachi Ltd., Breuninger

## What it publishes

Every page keycloak.org exposes, read 2026-09-29: 382 addresses. By kind, pages and the last 90 days:

- blog: 1 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- case study: 3 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest 2025-08-05
- conference or event: 2 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest 2025-03-05
- news or press: 2 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest 2024-09-03
- Recent: 2025-08-05 case study: Brz case study https://www.keycloak.org/2025/08/brz-case-study
- Recent: 2025-05-19 case study: Hitachi case study https://www.keycloak.org/2025/05/hitachi-case-study
- Recent: 2025-05-15 case study: Opentalk case study https://www.keycloak.org/2025/05/opentalk-case-study
- Recent: 2025-03-05 conference or event: Austria user group https://www.keycloak.org/2025/03/austria-user-group
- Recent: 2024-09-03 news or press: Announcement sre sig https://www.keycloak.org/2024/09/announcement-sre-sig
- Recent: 2024-06-20 news or press: Support for Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) and Multi-tenancy https://www.keycloak.org/2024/06/announcement-keycloak-organizations

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.