FrontEgg charges per MAU. Keycloak charges per server.

FrontEgg sells speed: drop-in login boxes, an admin portal, and B2B primitives like organizations and roles. The pricing follows the same B2B SaaS pattern as the platforms it serves — a free tier to start, then usage-based pricing that climbs on multiple axes at once: monthly active users, SSO/SCIM connections, and machine-to-machine (M2M) tokens.

As of 2026, FrontEgg's published pricing estimator scales roughly like this:

Figures reflect FrontEgg's published pricing estimator as of 2026 (frontegg.com/pricing); the pay-as-you-go figure is an example at one slider configuration, not a flat rate — your cost moves with MAU, connections, and M2M tokens. Enterprise is quote-based.

The catch is the same one every per-MAU platform shares, multiplied across three axes. The pay-as-you-go bill rises with your monthly active users, with each additional SSO/SCIM connection, and with the volume of M2M tokens you issue — so success makes it more expensive on three fronts at once. And the most advanced capabilities — multiple environments, advanced fraud protection, and a 99.99% SLA — sit behind a custom Enterprise contract rather than a published price.

Keycloak provides the same B2B building blocks — multi-tenant organizations, fine-grained roles, SSO, and self-service flows (Phase Two maintains the widely used Organizations extension) — with no per-MAU charge, no per-connection metering, and no M2M token billing. Your cost tracks infrastructure, not signups.

Winner: Keycloak

With Phase Two managed hosting, growth in active users doesn't change your bill. See a side-by-side pricing estimate vs. FrontEgg.

A strong advantage of FrontEgg is that it's a managed service. From a DevOps perspective, it requires minimal maintenance — the FrontEgg team handles updates, security patches, and infrastructure, keeping the system up to date. This comes at a cost, though, since customization is comparatively limited.

Self-hosted Keycloak requires more attention: organizations must allocate resources for installing, configuring, and updating the software, as well as managing the underlying infrastructure. This can be a drawback for teams without the necessary expertise. Phase Two removes this trade-off entirely: with managed hosting and zero-downtime upgrades, you get Keycloak's control without the operational load.

Winner: FrontEgg for self-hosted Keycloak — a tie when Keycloak is managed by Phase Two

FrontEgg is strong at embedded B2B UX: prebuilt login and admin components, organizations, role-based access, and self-service that teams can ship quickly. Its model is to own the user-management layer of your app through its widgets and APIs.

Keycloak covers the same B2B primitives — multi-tenant organizations, RBAC and ABAC, SSO, MFA, and self-service registration and account management — with fully themeable, embeddable login flows. Because it's open source, you can extend any of it, and you own the user data outright.

Winner: Keycloak

FrontEgg gets you live fast; Keycloak gives you the same capabilities without per-user cost and with a far higher customization ceiling.

FrontEgg is a good fit for early B2B teams that want embedded user management shipped in days and don't yet feel the per-MAU cost. As active users and B2B feature needs grow, Keycloak becomes the more economical and flexible choice — and it removes the ceiling on customization and data ownership.

Phase Two runs Keycloak for you, pairing the B2B building blocks FrontEgg is known for with open standards, full data ownership, and a fixed, predictable cost.