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Introduction to Ory Enterprise License

The Ory Enterprise License (OEL) is the self-hosted, commercially supported deployment of Ory: optimized builds of the same open source identity and access management (IAM) software, with enterprise features, guaranteed support, and timely security patching. You run Ory on your own infrastructure — in your cloud, your private cloud, or an air-gapped environment — and Ory's core engineering team backs it with SLAs. OEL gives you the control of self-hosting with the assurance of an enterprise vendor, so you can run Ory in production and mission-critical environments with confidence.

Talk to an expert to discuss your requirements, or read the OEL product brief to compare OEL with Ory Open Source.

Why Ory Enterprise License​

OEL builds share the same familiar patterns as the open source software, with significant advantages for organizations running Ory at scale:

  • Self-hosted control — Run Ory entirely within your own infrastructure for full control over data residency, networking, and deployment topology, including certified, regulated, and air-gapped environments.
  • Dedicated support and SLAs — Get 24/7 access to Ory's core engineering team with guaranteed response times based on incident priority, so critical production issues are resolved quickly.
  • Frequent, tested releases — Ory ships enterprise builds frequently, with the latest dependencies and timely patches for known CVEs in Go, third-party libraries, and other components. (Community-only updates can lag and are not tested at the same scale.)
  • Drop-in replacement — OEL builds are direct replacements for open source installations. Moving from Ory Open Source requires no special configuration or complex migration path.
  • Zero-downtime migrations — OEL builds support zero-downtime upgrades, and the optimized CockroachDB integration adds zero-downtime schema migrations using CockroachDB's online schema changes.
  • Multi-region deployments — With CockroachDB, OEL supports true multi-region resilience for high availability and disaster recovery, data domiciling for GDPR, CCPA, and similar regulations, and lower latency for globally distributed users.
  • Unlocked enterprise features — OEL activates functionality not available in the open source builds, such as B2B organizations and multi-tenancy in Ory Kratos and the OAuth 2.0 Resource Owner Password Credentials (ROPC) grant in Ory Hydra.

When to choose OEL​

Consider the Ory Enterprise License if your organization:

  • Runs Ory in critical production environments where downtime is unacceptable.
  • Needs CVE patches and security updates within guaranteed timeframes.
  • Requires dedicated support with contractual response-time SLAs.
  • Handles high traffic and large datasets (100 GB scale) that benefit from optimized database performance and zero-downtime migrations.
  • Needs enterprise-only features such as Ory Kratos multi-tenancy/organizations or the Ory Hydra ROPC grant.
  • Requires advanced deployment patterns like multi-region high availability, disaster recovery, or data domiciling.

Ory Open Source remains a good fit for evaluation, prototyping, development and testing, and deployments where occasional upgrade downtime is acceptable and guaranteed CVE patching is not required.

What's included​

OEL packages Ory's open source servers as optimized, enterprise-grade builds, delivered with the tooling and support you need to run them in production. The core services each map to a focused part of the identity and access problem: identity and sessions, OAuth2 and OIDC, permissions, enterprise SSO, edge access control, and API key management. Around them, OEL adds the enterprise delivery layer:

  • Ory Account Experience — Prebuilt, customizable screens for login, registration, recovery, verification, and account settings, so you can ship auth before building your own UI.
  • Ory Elements — An open source component library for integrating your own authentication UI quickly with frameworks like React and Next.js.
  • Ory Actions — Hooks that extend Ory by running custom business logic and integrating with third-party services such as CRMs, payment gateways, and analytics platforms in response to identity events.
  • Ory CLI — A command-line tool for configuring and operating your self-hosted deployment.
  • SDKs and reference UIs — Client SDKs for popular languages and reference UI implementations for frameworks like React, Next.js, and React Native.
  • Production Helm charts — Supported Kubernetes Helm charts for deploying and operating Ory services in your own cluster.
  • Optimized builds and database integration — High-performance connection pooling and an enhanced CockroachDB integration for large-scale traffic and datasets.
  • Enterprise support — Dedicated channels, onboarding, and SLAs from Ory's engineering team.

Ory Kratos (Identity & AuthN)​

Ory Kratos manages identities, credentials, and sessions. It powers self-service flows for registration, login, account recovery, email and phone verification, profile settings, and multi-factor authentication. It supports passwords, social sign-in, OpenID Connect, and passkeys, and it uses customizable JSON Schema identity models (SCIM) so you control exactly what data each identity holds. SCIM support enables automated user provisioning and deprovisioning. Learn more in the Ory Kratos documentation.

Ory Hydra (Delegated AuthZ & Federated AuthN)​

Ory Hydra is a fully featured, OpenID Certified® OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect provider. It handles single sign-on, API access authorization, token issuance, and delegation, with support for stateless JWT access tokens, token exchange, and credential rotation. Learn more in the Ory Hydra documentation.

Ory Keto (Fine-grained Permissions)​

Ory Keto provides low-latency, relationship-based authorization for fine-grained access control. It implements Google's Zanzibar model and supports RBAC and ABAC patterns, letting you define and check permissions across any application. Learn more in the Ory Keto documentation.

Ory Polis (Enterprise SSO AuthZ)​

Ory Polis adds enterprise single sign-on through SAML and OIDC. It connects to identity providers such as Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, and Google Workspace, supports directory sync, and can also act as a SAML Identity Provider — abstracting SAML complexity behind a standard OAuth 2.0 flow. Learn more in the Ory Polis documentation.

Ory Oathkeeper (Proxy-based Access Control)​

Ory Oathkeeper provides identity and policy-aware access control at the network edge. It acts as a zero-trust proxy that authenticates and authorizes requests before they reach your services. Learn more in the Ory Oathkeeper documentation.

Ory Talos (API keys)​

Ory Talos manages the full lifecycle of API credentials for machine-to-machine and AI agent access: issuing keys, verifying them, deriving short-lived tokens, and revoking access. It replaces static, over-privileged API keys with programmable macaroon tokens that enforce least privilege — permissions can only be narrowed, never widened — and supports token derivation, IP allowlists, and time-to-live limits. Commercial builds add multi-tenancy, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and CockroachDB backends, Redis caching, rate-limit enforcement, and edge proxy nodes. Learn more in the Ory Talos documentation.

OEL compared to the other deployment models​

OEL is one of three ways to run Ory. All three share the same open source core, so you can start with one and move to another as your needs change:

Ory Open SourceOry Enterprise LicenseOry Network
HostingSelf-hostedSelf-hostedFully managed (SaaS)
Who operates the infrastructureYouYouOry
LicenseApache 2.0CommercialCommercial
ManagementCLICLICLI, GUI (Ory Console), and Terraform
SupportCommunityDedicated, 24/7 with SLAsIncluded with the platform
CVE patchingSelf-managedGuaranteed timeframesHandled by Ory
Enterprise features (e.g. multi-tenancy, ROPC)Not includedIncludedIncluded
Best forEvaluation, prototyping, and full-control self-hostingRegulated, air-gapped, or high-control productionThe fastest path to production with no operational overhead

OpenAI runs OEL with Ory Hydra Enterprise to manage authentication for its hundreds of millions of weekly active users — read the OpenAI case study.

Next steps​