Based on categories, features, and market presence, I listed the top 10 open source RBAC tools that help organizations restrict system access by granting permissions and privileges to users.
Open source RBAC tools based on GitHub stars
Tool selection & sorting:
- Number of reviews: 300+ GitHub stars.
- Update release: At least one update was released last week.
- Sorting: Vendors are sorted based on GitHubStar numbers in descending order.
Casdoor
Casdoor is an Identity Access Management (IAM) platform with a web interface supporting OAuth 2.0, Google Workspace, Active Directory, and Kerberos.
Figure 1: Illustration of authentication through communication
Source: Casdoor1
Free services included:
- Identity verification
- Role-based access control
- User administration
- Resource upload
Casdoor implements authentication through communication with vendors and users.
How Roles and Permissions Work
Roles and permissions can be paired to define customizable permissions for built-in objects (like apps) or other access behaviors. Administrators create groups and virtual groups based on company’s authority structure. Each group can define permissions individually.
Who uses this: Organizations needing IAM platform with multiple authentication protocol support (OAuth 2.0, Active Directory, Kerberos).
Limitation: Requires configuring the web interface. Not command-line focused like some alternatives.
Zitadel
Zitadel is open-source identity infrastructure platform with RBAC integrations available. Combines multi-tenancy (B2B customer portal management), secure login, and self-service capabilities.
Supported protocols:
- OpenID Connect
- OAuth 2.x
- SAML 2
Video 1: Zitadel administrator console
Source: Zitadel2
Implementation Approach
Administrators integrate RBAC package and assign authorization roles from ZITADEL Console. Permissions assigned through APIs.
Role types:
- Application-specific positions (admin, accountant, employee, human resources)
- ZITADEL-specific manager roles (ORG_OWNER, IAM_OWNER)
Example: HR manager David Wallace’s credentials showing management grants search.
Figure 2: Searching for management grants in Zitadel
Source: Zitadel3
Who uses this: Organizations managing B2B customer portals requiring multi-tenancy with secure login and self-service.
Advantage: Combines identity management with RBAC in single platform. Reduces tool sprawl.
Cerbos
Cerbos is authentication layer allowing users to design access control rules for application resources.
Capabilities:
- Collaborate with teammates to create and share policies in private environments
- Deliver network security policy updates to entire packet data protocol (PDP) fleet
- Create custom policy bundles for client-side or in-browser authorization
Figure 3: How Cerbos integrates with your application
Source: Cerbos4
Permit – Opal
OPAL is an administrative layer for policy engines such as Open Policy Agents (OPA). Detects policy and data changes in real-time, sends live updates to administrators.
How It Works
Administrators update each user’s role-based attributes. Attributes are transferred to the backend and placed in the database with the user’s information. Administrators execute the “permit.check()” function to check users’ access levels.
Video: User permission checks in the UI with Opal
Source: Permit.io5
Who uses this: Teams already using Open Policy Agent (OPA), needing real-time policy updates and change detection.
Technical requirement: Requires OPA deployment. OPAL is an administrative layer, not a standalone solution.
Fairwinds – RBAC Manager
RBAC Manager created to ease Kubernetes authorization. Allows users to customize role bindings or service account settings instead of manually maintaining configurations.
Three Primary Goals
- Offering accessible approach: More flexible RBAC that’s easier to manage.
- Minimizing configurations: Reduce settings necessary for effective authentication.
- Automating modifications: Automate execution of RBAC configuration changes.
Basic Example
Single user, Joe, requires “edit” access to the “web” namespace. RBAC Manager creates role bindings allowing edit access to the web namespace.
Figure 4: Role binding with Fairwinds – RBAC Manager
Source: Fairwinds6
Who uses this: Kubernetes administrators managing multiple namespaces and users requiring automated role binding management.
Why this matters: Manual Kubernetes RBAC configuration is error-prone and time-consuming. RBAC Manager automates this.Creating role bindings that allow edit access to the web namespace.
CyberArk – KubiScan
KubiScan is a tool for screening the Kubernetes cluster for risky permissions in the role-based access control (RBAC) authorization plan. This can be especially useful in large setups with several permissions that might be difficult to track.
KubiScan can:
- Detect risky roles\cluster roles.
- Detect risky role bindings\cluster role bindings.
- Detect risky subjects (e.g. users, groups, and service accounts).
- Detect risky pods\containers.
- List subjects with specific kinds (‘user’, ‘group’, or ‘service account’).
- List rules of role binding or cluster role binding.
Video 3: An example of KubiScan usage to detect risky permissions
Source: Cyberark7
OpenFGA
OpenFGA is an open-source fine-grained authorization system built on Google’s Zanzibar (Google’s global authorization system).
With OpenFGA administrators can:
- Write an authorization model
- Write relationship tuples
- Perform authorization checks
- Add authentication to their OpenFGA server
For example, to check if user “user:anne” of type user has a “reader” relationship with object “document:2021-budget” administrators can write tuples to check APIs.
Thus, the query in the figure will always return { “allowed”: true }if the user sets “document:2021-budget#reader” has the “reader” relation with “document:2021-budget”
Figure 5: Querying with contextual tuples
Source: OpenFGA8
Casbin Net
Casbin is an authorization library that may be used in situations where companies expect to see a specified user or subject to have access to a given object or entity.
Casbin can handle several intricate permission circumstances including roles (RBAC), attributes (ABAC). The most fundamental and simple model in Casbin is the access control list (ACL) in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Creating a role-based access control list (ACL) with Casbin
Source: Casbin9
Which means:
- alice can read data1
- bob can write data2
Alcide
Alcide is an RBAC tool for Kubernetes that enables DevOps teams to build security controls into their pipelines to defend their Kubernetes clusters.
Alcide’s RBAC authorization leverages the “rbac.authorization.k8s.io” API group to make authorization choices, allowing users to set rules dynamically via the Kubernetes API.
With Alcide, users can use Role or ClusterRole to:
- Define rights on namespace ( collection of names for identifying objects) resources and grant them inside a particular namespace(s).
- Define permissions on namespaced objects.
- Define permissions for cluster-scoped resources.
Table 2: Roles and cluster roles used attached to user or groups
Palo Alto Networks – Police
Palo Alto Network’s RBAC Police can get the RBAC permissions of Kubernetes identities, including service accounts, pods, nodes, users, and groups. The policy library contains 20+ rules that detect identities with dangerous permissions, based on a distinct attack pattern. With Police tools users can:
- Inspect the permissions of specific identities
- Configure violation types
- Create custom policies
- Scope a namespace
Figure 7: A custom policy example with the Police Tool
Source: Palo Alto Networks10
With the Palo Alto Network Police, administrators can define specific RBAC policies. In the example:
- The “describe” rule specifies the description and severity of the policy.
- The “targets” set specifies whose identities the policy assesses and generates violations for.
- The “evaluateRoles” function gets the roles of a serviceAccounts, node, user, or group and assesses if they violate policy.
Read more: RBAC use cases, RBAC examples.
Why should your organization use RBAC tools?
Network security statistics show that 6+ million data records were exposed globally due to data breaches in the first quarter of 2023. Delivering role-based conventional logic is an effective method for governing, unauthorized user access to vital company resources, however, manually dealing with hundreds of conditional statements might require significant effort.
Security teams can enhance their protection strategies by integrating centralized open-source Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) tools with Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems. This ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive resources, improving access governance.
Additionally, by implementing microsegmentation, security policies can be applied across isolated network zones, further restricting access and minimizing the attack surface. This layered approach strengthens security by combining granular user permissions with tightly controlled network boundaries.
Benefits of open source RBAC tools
Open source RBAC tools allow users to:
- Interact with fellow developers to report and track bugs and feature requests with transparency.
- Follow the latest development version and view how development is proceeding.
- Fix bugs and implement features if you know how to code.
- Avoid initial price payments, subscription fees, and vendor lock-in.
How to select open source RBAC tools
Here are a few recommendations to consider while selecting an open source RBAC tool:
- Check the tool’s popularity: The number of GitHub contributors and community members responding to user inquiries reflects the popularity rate of open source technologies. The larger the community, the more support your organization can get.
- Check the tool’s features: Most open source RBAC tools provide role customization, permissions registration, and login methods. However, if your organization expects to use the RBAC tool for diverse purposes you should look for a more complete product. For example, an organization looking for automated access management might consider a solution with identity access management (IAM) features.
- Compare closed-source solutions: Open source solutions usually include limited or add-on features. Implementing a more tailored solution that offers a higher level of features (e.g., cloud segmentation) can be more efficient for your organization. Here is a list of closed-source micro segmentation tools with RBAC features.
Further reading
- 6 Real-life RBAC Examples
- Top 7 Real-life Network Segmentation Use Cases
- Network Security Policy Management Solutions (NSPM)
Reference Links
Cem's work has been cited by leading global publications including Business Insider, Forbes, Washington Post, global firms like Deloitte, HPE and NGOs like World Economic Forum and supranational organizations like European Commission. You can see more reputable companies and resources that referenced AIMultiple.
Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised enterprises on their technology decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.
He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.
Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.
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