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Join Permit's SlackAuth0 FGA is a managed fine-grained authorization service from Okta, built on OpenFGA, the open source CNCF Incubating project. It provides relationship-based access control for applications handling complex permission models. Teams evaluating Auth0 FGA often compare it with other authorization services to find the best fit for their requirements.
This post covers what Auth0 FGA provides, how Permit.io approaches fine-grained authorization, and when each makes sense. For background on FGA concepts, see What is Fine-Grained Authorization. Since Auth0 FGA runs on OpenFGA, our OpenFGA alternatives comparison covers the wider field.
According to the Auth0 FGA documentation, Auth0 FGA is inspired by Google's Zanzibar and relies on Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC). It allows developers to implement Role-Based Access Control and provides additional capabilities for Attribute-Based Access Control through Contextual Tuples and Conditional Relationship Tuples.
Key features per the Auth0 FGA docs:
According to the Auth0 marketing page, Auth0 FGA provides 99.99% availability SLA, supports millions of users and billions of resources, and is designed for multi-region deployment.
According to the Auth0 FGA subscription plans page, Auth0 FGA offers:
The subscription plans page does not publish specific dollar pricing. Production use requires contacting an account executive for an Enterprise contract.
Permit.io is an authorization-as-a-service platform that generates policy for multiple engines, including OPA (Rego) and Cedar. The control plane runs in Permit's cloud. Decisions run in a managed Cloud PDP or in self-hosted Edge PDPs deployed next to the enforcement point, with OPAL pushing policy and data updates to them in real time.
As shared in our docs, Permit supports RBAC, ReBAC, ABAC, and PBAC. It combines policy as code (Rego or Cedar) with policy as graph (Zanzibar-style relationships, the same model family as Auth0 FGA and OpenFGA) in one system, so a relationship and an attribute condition can be part of the same check. You define resources, actions, and roles in the Policy Editor, the API, Terraform, or a connected Git repository.
Key differentiators include Permit Elements, embeddable UI components for user management, access requests, approvals, and audit logs. These let product managers, support, and customer administrators manage access without code changes.
| Dimension | Auth0 FGA | Permit.io |
|---|---|---|
| Built on | OpenFGA (open source, CNCF Incubating) | OPA (CNCF Graduated) or Cedar (CNCF Sandbox) |
| Policy language | OpenFGA DSL | Generated Rego or Cedar |
| Access models | ReBAC (native), ABAC via conditions | RBAC, ReBAC, ABAC, PBAC |
| Decision point | Managed cloud | Cloud PDP or self-hosted Edge PDP |
| End-user UI | Dashboard for developers | Permit Elements for end-users and developers |
| Self-hosted option | No (OpenFGA is self-hostable separately) | Edge PDP runs in your network |
| Open source | Based on OpenFGA (Apache 2.0) | Edge PDP, OPAL, cedar-agent (Apache 2.0) |
Sources: Auth0 FGA docs, our docs, OpenFGA, OPA, Cedar.
Auth0 FGA uses the OpenFGA DSL for defining authorization models. OpenFGA is a CNCF Incubating project, so the model syntax is vendor-neutral, though it is specific to the Zanzibar-style approach.
Permit.io generates policy in Rego (for OPA) or Cedar. Both are open policy languages with broader ecosystems:
Generated Rego or Cedar can be reviewed in Git, tested with standard tools (opa test, for example), and reused outside Permit if you change control planes. This provides more flexibility if you need policy that applies to infrastructure as well as applications.
Auth0 FGA decisions run in Okta's managed cloud infrastructure. The service is designed for high availability (99.99% SLA per their marketing) and supports multi-region deployment. However, Auth0 FGA does not offer a self-hosted decision point. If you need decisions to stay within your VPC, you would need to self-host OpenFGA separately.
Permit.io supports both a managed Cloud PDP and self-hosted Edge PDPs. As shared in our deployment docs, Edge PDPs run as containers in your network. OPAL pushes policy and data changes to each PDP. If the control plane is temporarily unreachable, Edge PDPs keep working from cached policy.
For teams with strict data residency requirements or latency constraints, running the PDP inside your network next to the enforcement point keeps authorization data local and removes the remote decision hop.
For large relationship graphs, Nexus PDP (early access) runs next to the enforcement point, so there is no remote network hop in the decision path. In its published beta benchmark, one 2 CPU pod answered RBAC checks at 5.6 ms P99 and ReBAC checks three hops deep at under 11.3 ms P99, and sustained 658 RBAC checks per second, measured server-side. That is comparable to OpenFGA and AuthZed, and can be faster depending on topology and workload, with much less ops work.
Auth0 FGA is designed primarily for ReBAC. According to their docs, it supports ABAC scenarios through Contextual Tuples and Conditional Relationship Tuples, but the core model is relationship-based.
Permit.io supports RBAC, ReBAC, ABAC, and PBAC in a single service. The policy editor generates the appropriate policy code depending on your model. For teams that need to combine relationship-based and attribute-based access in the same application, this multi-model approach simplifies the architecture.
Auth0 FGA provides a dashboard for developers and operators. According to the Auth0 FGA blog on roles, the dashboard now supports per-member authorization with roles like Account Owner, Group Manager, Store Editor, and Store Viewer. This helps scale enterprise teams, but the UI is designed for internal users managing the FGA service.
Permit.io provides Permit Elements, embeddable React components for user management, access requests, approvals, and audit logs. These are designed to be embedded in your product, letting your customers' administrators manage their own permissions. For SaaS applications where end-users need self-service access management, this is a significant difference.
Auth0 FGA does not publish specific dollar pricing. According to the subscription plans page, the free trial is for evaluation and production use requires an Enterprise contract. Additional capacity (Permissions Index add-on) is priced based on Active Expansions.
As shared on our pricing page and payment portal, the Community tier is free with up to 1,000 MAU, 20 tenants, 3 environments, and 14 days of audit log retention. Pro and Enterprise tiers are usage-based on MAU. Enterprise adds unlimited usage, compliance support (SOC 2 Type II report, HIPAA BAA), multi-cloud and on-prem deployment, and SLA support.
| Tier | Auth0 FGA | Permit.io |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Evaluation only | 1,000 MAU, 20 tenants, 3 environments, 14 days logs |
| Production | Enterprise contract (contact sales) | Pro, self-serve and MAU-based |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | Custom pricing (unlimited MAU, on-prem, compliance) |
Auth0 FGA fits best when:
Permit.io fits best when:
Auth0 FGA integrates naturally with Auth0/Okta identity products. If you already issue tokens through Auth0, adding FGA keeps your authorization within the same ecosystem.
Permit.io works with any identity provider. You can use Auth0 for authentication and Permit.io for authorization, including for AI agents, which should get their own scoped permissions through policy instead of inheriting a user's full access. The API, SDKs for Python, Node.js, Go, Java, .NET, and Ruby, a Terraform provider, and GitOps let you manage authorization alongside your infrastructure code.
Auth0 FGA is a managed ReBAC service built on OpenFGA, with decisions running in Okta's cloud. Permit.io is an authorization control plane that generates policy in Rego or Cedar, supports multiple access models, and offers both cloud and self-hosted decision points.
No. Auth0 FGA is a managed service. However, Auth0 FGA is built on OpenFGA, which is open source and can be self-hosted separately.
Yes. Permit.io works with any identity provider. You can use Auth0 to authenticate users and Permit.io to authorize their actions.
Both support ReBAC with relationships. Auth0 FGA uses the OpenFGA model directly. Permit.io's ReBAC support includes relationship tuples and role derivation, with OPAL syncing relationship data to Edge PDPs. For very large relationship datasets, Permit's hybrid model lets you run graph-aware PDPs such as Nexus PDP next to the application, which cuts network latency without operating a separate OpenFGA cluster.
Auth0 FGA requires contacting sales for Enterprise pricing. Permit.io publishes pricing starting with a free tier (1,000 MAU, 20 tenants) and a self-serve, MAU-based Pro tier, so you can start in production without a sales contract.
Co-Founder & VP of R&D at Permit.io
