An open-source authorization service inspired by Google Zanzibar for building fine-grained, scalable access control systems.
Permify is an open-source authorization service that enables developers to build and manage fine-grained, scalable access control systems for their applications. It solves the problem of complex, time-consuming authorization implementation by providing a centralized service inspired by Google Zanzibar, allowing teams to define and enforce permissions across resources and tenants efficiently.
Developers and engineering teams building applications that require complex, scalable permission systems, such as SaaS platforms, enterprise software, or multi-tenant systems needing RBAC, ReBAC, or ABAC models.
Developers choose Permify for its ability to centralize and standardize authorization logic, reducing development time from months to days. Its unique selling point is combining the scalability of Google Zanzibar with flexibility for fine-grained permissions and self-hosting options.
An open-source authorization as a service inspired by Google Zanzibar, designed to build and manage fine-grained and scalable authorization systems for any application. — Permify is now part of FusionAuth 🎉
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Abstracts authorization from the codebase for easier reasoning, testing, and debugging, allowing teams to move faster in core development, as emphasized in the README.
Supports RBAC, ReBAC, and ABAC via a domain-specific language, enabling granular, context-aware policies for complex use cases.
Delivers access check response times as low as 10ms and scales under high loads, with load tests showing 0% failures at 10,000 RPS.
Provides isolated authorization logic and custom permissions for different tenants, managed from a single place, ideal for SaaS applications.
Offers both cloud-managed service and self-hosted Community Edition, balancing convenience with data privacy and infrastructure control.
The Community Edition requires managing infrastructure, backups, security, and maintenance, which can be resource-intensive and error-prone.
Self-hosted CE lacks premium features like observability dashboards and data synchronization, as admitted in the README's comparison table.
Requires learning Permify's domain-specific language for policy definition, which can be a barrier compared to using familiar libraries or frameworks.
Using Permify Cloud ties authorization to an external service, and migration away could be difficult due to custom policies and data dependencies.