Our take
Pick FusionAuth if app teams who will stay on Community at $0 (self-host, unlimited MAUs, forum support) while they open a first Users table, then buy Starter at $162/month billed annually (1,000 MAU slider) when they need Cloud hosting, advanced MFA, and application themes. Pick Permit if saaS teams who will stay on Community at $0 (1,000 MAUs, 20 tenants) while they open a first Audit Log, then talk to Permit when
auth admin desk
hosted authorization desk
Best for
FusionAuth Users you start at $0
Permit Who-can-do-what you start at $0
Free plan
FusionAuth $0 · self-hosted. Unlimited. Core authentication. Community support (forums, GitHub). Passkeys / biometrics need a Free License. No FusionAuth Cloud hosting on this card
Permit $0 · 1,000 MAUs. 20 tenants. No limit on authorization queries. 25 roles. 50 resource types. 5 condition sets. 2,000 role assignments / resource instances / relationship tuples. 20 groups. 3 environments. Unlimited projects. RBAC / ABAC / ReBAC / PBAC, Policy UI, Cloud Console, unlimited PDPs, single region. Basic Slack support
Lowest paid
FusionAuth Essentials $2/mo
Permit Not published by the vendor
Next step up
FusionAuth Starter $162/mo yearly
Permit
Runs where
FusionAuth Local or hosted
Permit Hosted
Watch out
FusionAuth $162 / $2,970 are the 1,000-MAU tiles
Permit Free is 1,000 MAUs and 20 tenants
Last checked
FusionAuth 2026-10-23 · fusionauth.io/pricing
Permit 2026-10-23 · permit.io/pricing
app teams who will stay on Community at $0 (self-host, unlimited MAUs, forum support) while they open a first Users table, then buy Starter at $162/month billed annually (1,000 MAU slider) when they need Cloud hosting, advanced MFA, and application themes.
Read the FusionAuth pagesaaS teams who will stay on Community at $0 (1,000 MAUs, 20 tenants) while they open a first Audit Log, then talk to Permit when they need unlimited MAUs, on-prem, or a 99.99% SLA — because the public page does not print a self-serve paid dollar.
Read the Permit page