Cerbos vs IAM Zero: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Cerbos: External authorization engine for enterprise apps with RBAC/ABAC policy support. built by Cerbos. Core capabilities include Policy-based authorization engine for runtime access control decisions, Role-based access control (RBAC) support, Attribute-based access control (ABAC) support..

IAM Zero: IAM Zero detects identity and access management issues and automatically suggests least-privilege policies by analyzing application errors and access patterns in cloud environments..

Both serve the Identity Governance and Administration market but differ in approach, feature depth, and target audience.

Cerbos is developed by Cerbos. IAM Zero is open-source with 259 GitHub stars. Vendor maturity, funding stage, and team size can be important factors when evaluating long-term viability and support quality.

Cerbos and IAM Zero serve similar Identity Governance and Administration use cases: both are Identity Governance and Administration tools, both cover Least Privilege, Policy. Key differences: Cerbos is Commercial while IAM Zero is Free, IAM Zero is open-source. Review the feature comparison above to determine which fits your requirements.