# ory/ladon

A SDK for access control policies: authorization for the microservice and IoT age. Inspired by AWS IAM policies. Written for Go.

Repository: https://github.com/ory/ladon
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/ory-ladon
Homepage: https://www.ory.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=ladon
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2025-10-22T16:06:57+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 44/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 48, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3974, "days_push": 315, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2457, forks 224 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:53.248070+00:00)

## What it is
Ladon is a Go SDK for policy-based access control (authorization), inspired by AWS IAM policies. It provides fine-grained, condition-based policy evaluation for multi-tenant, distributed, and IoT environments, as an alternative to RBAC and ACLs.

## Use cases
- implement fine-grained authorization in a Go microservice
- enforce AWS IAM-style access control policies
- build multi-tenant permission checks with conditions
- replace RBAC or ACLs with policy-based access control
- add authorization to IoT device access management
- evaluate who can perform which action on which resource

## When to choose
- you need fine-grained, condition-based authorization in Go
- you want AWS IAM-like policy semantics in your own application
- you're building multi-tenant or distributed systems needing centralized policy decisions

## When to avoid
- you need full authentication or identity management rather than just authorization
- you want a standalone authorization server rather than an embedded library
- you need a maintained solution with active development and broad storage adapters

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: authorization, auth, sdk
- domain: security, backend, developer-tools, apis
- platform: go, cross-platform
- tags: access-control, policy-engine, aws-iam-inspired, rbac, acl, microservices, iot

## Member repositories
- ory/ladon (main) score 44

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:53.248070+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 2026-08-30T02:30:02.503701+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/ory/ladon (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:53.248070+00:00, sha 76ca24f03e8c)
  - homepage: https://www.ory.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=ladon (fetched 2026-08-29T10:11:16.207776+00:00, sha 9cd75b156cd4)
  - site_page: https://www.ory.com/docs/welcome (fetched 2026-08-29T10:11:16.212741+00:00, sha e6f2747eb4d2)
  - site_page: https://www.ory.com/about (fetched 2026-08-29T10:11:16.216806+00:00, sha e44652fde9f9)
  - site_page: https://www.ory.com/pricing (fetched 2026-08-29T10:11:16.210461+00:00, sha 35c1d920fc8d)
  - site_page: https://changelog.ory.com/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:11:16.214741+00:00, sha c8e6b35f30bb)
  - site_page: https://www.ory.com/integrations (fetched 2026-08-29T10:11:16.218819+00:00, sha 966475eed325)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.