Cerbos. Open source, horizontally scalable, stateless authorization
Cerbos PDP, policy decision point, is an open source authorization layer that can evolve as your product grows. It enables developers to define powerful, context-aware access control in simple, intuitive, and testable policies. Cerbos runs in your own environment. We started working on Cerbos[0] over 3 years ago. Permission management across applications is difficult, especially as the code base grows: you have hundreds of users, many services in different languages, and several environments. Hardcoded access control rules tangled with business logic make every new role and permission change…
Cerbos. Open source, horizontally scalable, stateless authorization launched on December 3, 2024 with 24 votes, #702 of 5,365 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 1 year on.
In plain words
Cerbos is an open source authorization layer that works as a policy decision point for access control across applications. Developers use it to define context-aware permission rules in simple, testable policies rather than hardcoding access control into business logic. The stateless, self-hosted system scales horizontally to handle permission management consistently across multiple services, languages, and environments without tangling authorization with code.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Cerbos is an open-core authorization management platform for authorizing every identity and governing every action across applications, gateways, workloads, and AI agents. - cerbos/cerbos
In the maker’s words, at launch
Cerbos PDP, policy decision point, is an open source authorization layer that can evolve as your product grows. It enables developers to define powerful, context-aware access control in simple, intuitive, and testable policies. Cerbos runs in your own environment. We started working on Cerbos[0] over 3 years ago.…
Does a similar job
all alternatives →- CHCerbos Hub - Authorization Management System2023 · ▲11
Hello HN! I'm on the DevRel team at Cerbos (https://cerbos.dev/), a tool designed to manage who can do what in your software applications. For a couple of years now, Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) is naming authorization a top 10 API security risk: https://owasp.org/API-Security/editions/2023/en/0x11-t10/ We are thrilled to announce that Cerbos Hub is now in public beta! Join the beta and help us shape the future of authZ: https://hub.cerbos.cloud/ Cerbos Hub is a managed service offering for the open…
Permit.io2023 · permit.io · ▲677The new Permit.io CLI brings developer-first workflows to access control. Define, test, deploy, and enforce fine-grained authorization using AI, CI/CD, GitOps, and OpenAPI — all from your terminal
Bor – Open-source policy management for Linux desktopsAug 2026 · getbor.dev · ▲197Hi HN! I've been working on Bor, an open-source system for centralized Linux desktop management. Bor consists of a lightweight Go agent and a central server. Policies are streamed to clients over mTLS/gRPC in real time—no polling—and currently support Firefox, Chrome, KDE, dconf, polkit and package management, with more coming. Version 0.8 introduces several new policy types - Thunderbird, Microsoft Edge for Business and FirewallD zones, along with a number of improvements and fixes. I'd love feedback on the architecture, policy model, and whether this is something you'd consider for…
A Go Library for Better Access Control2017 · github.com · ▲158A SDK for access control policies: authorization for the microservice and IoT age. Inspired by AWS IAM policies. Written for Go. - ory/ladon
- OOoso – Open-Source Policy Engine for Authorization2020 · osohq.com · ▲44
Oso helps companies run agents in production with confidence using monitoring, access controls, and automated least privilege.
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Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part
