Introduction to Ory Network | Ory

Ory Network Overview

Ory Network is the fully managed deployment of Ory: a global, low-latency identity and access management (IAM) service delivered as SaaS. It runs the same open source software you can self-host, with hosting, scaling, security patching, and compliance handled for you — so you can add authentication, authorization, and fine-grained permissions to any application and get back to building your product.

Why Ory Network

Ory Network gives you Ory's full identity stack without the operational overhead of running it yourself:

What's included

Ory Network is composed of optimized builds of Ory's open source servers, managed and integrated for you, plus the console and tooling that make them fast to adopt. The core services each map to a focused part of the identity and access problem: identity and sessions, OAuth2 and OIDC, permissions, enterprise SSO, edge access control, and API key management. Around them, Ory Network adds the layer that gets you to production quickly:

Ory Kratos (Identity & AuthN)

Ory Kratos manages identities, credentials, and sessions. It powers self-service flows for registration, login, account recovery, email and phone verification, profile settings, and multi-factor authentication. It supports passwords, social sign-in, OpenID Connect, and passkeys, and it uses customizable JSON Schema identity models (SCIM) so you control exactly what data each identity holds. SCIM support enables automated user provisioning and deprovisioning. Learn more in the Ory Kratos documentation.

Ory Hydra (Delegated AuthZ & Federated AuthN)

Ory Hydra is a fully featured, OpenID Certified® OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect provider. It handles single sign-on, API access authorization, token issuance, and delegation, with support for stateless JWT access tokens, token exchange, and credential rotation. Learn more in the Ory Hydra documentation.

Ory Keto (Fine-grained Permissions)

Ory Keto provides low-latency, relationship-based authorization for fine-grained access control. It implements Google's Zanzibar model and supports RBAC and ABAC patterns, letting you define and check permissions across any application. Learn more in the Ory Keto documentation.

Ory Polis (Enterprise SSO AuthZ)

Ory Polis adds enterprise single sign-on through SAML and OIDC. It connects to identity providers such as Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, and Google Workspace, supports directory sync, and can also act as a SAML Identity Provider — abstracting SAML complexity behind a standard OAuth 2.0 flow. Learn more in the Ory Polis documentation.

Ory Oathkeeper (Proxy-based access control)

Ory Oathkeeper provides identity and policy-aware access control at the network edge. It acts as a zero-trust proxy that authenticates and authorizes requests before they reach your services. Learn more in the Ory Oathkeeper documentation.

Ory Talos (API keys)

Ory Talos manages the full lifecycle of API credentials for machine-to-machine and AI agent access: issuing keys, verifying them, deriving short-lived tokens, and revoking access. It replaces static, over-privileged API keys with programmable macaroon tokens that enforce least privilege — permissions can only be narrowed, never widened — and supports token derivation, IP allowlists, and time-to-live limits. Commercial builds add multi-tenancy, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and CockroachDB backends, Redis caching, rate-limit enforcement, and edge proxy nodes. Learn more in the Ory Talos documentation.

Ory Network compared to the other deployment models

Ory Network is one of three ways to run Ory. All three share the same open source core, so you can start with one and move to another as your needs change:

Ory Open Source Ory Enterprise License Ory Network
Hosting Self-hosted Self-hosted Fully managed (SaaS)
Who operates the infrastructure You You Ory
License Apache 2.0 Commercial Commercial
Management CLI CLI CLI, GUI (Ory Console), and Terraform
Support Community Dedicated, 24/7 with SLAs Included with the platform
CVE patching Self-managed Guaranteed timeframes Handled by Ory
Enterprise features (e.g. multi-tenancy, ROPC) Not included Included Included
Best for Evaluation, prototyping, and full-control self-hosting Regulated, air-gapped, or high-control production The fastest path to production with no operational overhead

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