# openfga/openfga

A high performance and flexible authorization/permission engine built for developers and inspired by Google Zanzibar

Repository: https://github.com/openfga/openfga
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/openfga
Homepage: https://openfga.dev
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: authorization, permissions, security, zanzibar, openfga, entitlements, go, golang, fine-grained-authorization, fine-grained-access-control, fga, abac, pbac, rbac, rebac, hacktoberfest
Last push: 2026-08-26T19:03:25+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 99/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 99, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1547, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 8, "gap_med": 11, "n_releases_24m": 56}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5661, forks 468 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:27.369182+00:00)

## What it is
OpenFGA is a high-performance, open-source fine-grained authorization and permission engine inspired by Google's Zanzibar, owned by the CNCF. It lets developers model relationship-based access control (ReBAC), RBAC, and ABAC via an easy-to-read modeling language and query it through HTTP and gRPC APIs.

## Use cases
- check if a user can view or edit a document
- implement role-based access control for my app
- model folder and document parent-child permissions
- centralize authorization decisions outside application code
- list all objects a user has access to
- manage entitlements and permissions for a multi-tenant SaaS
- implement relationship-based access control like Google Zanzibar
- add attribute-based and time-based authorization conditions

## When to choose
- you need fine-grained, relationship-based permissions that evolve in complexity
- you want to centralize and audit authorization logic outside your app code
- you need millisecond authorization checks at scale
- you want RBAC, ABAC, and ReBAC in one engine with SDKs for popular languages

## When to avoid
- you only need simple role checks that a few database flags can handle
- you cannot operate an external authorization service or datastore
- you need policy-as-code compliance tooling rather than relationship-based permissions

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: stable
- function: authorization, auth, security, api-framework, cli
- domain: security, backend, apis, developer-tools, self-hosted
- platform: self-hosted, go, windows, cloud
- tags: zanzibar, rebac, rbac, abac, fine-grained-authorization, permissions, entitlements, grpc, cncf, docker, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- openfga/openfga (main) score 99

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:27.369182+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:54:20.052595+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/openfga/openfga (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:27.369182+00:00, sha cd342b5f4130)
  - homepage: https://openfga.dev (fetched 2026-08-29T08:49:35.407036+00:00, sha c3cf3e1abef6)
  - site_page: https://openfga.dev/docs/fga (fetched 2026-08-29T08:49:35.416258+00:00, sha 8b137229c787)
  - site_page: https://openfga.dev/docs/getting-started (fetched 2026-08-29T08:49:35.418204+00:00, sha da68d3597a9b)
  - site_page: https://openfga.dev/docs/modeling (fetched 2026-08-29T08:49:35.420014+00:00, sha 55a908820094)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.