I recently saw this TechCrunch article about a “Y-Combinator backed” startup called 0pass, promising to “make it easier” for organizations to adopt passwordless authentication. This, as with nearly every authentication-related startup, was pretty interesting to me. But I was surprised to see this screenshot in the article, ostensibly displaying 0pass’s product:
![](https://blog.unixfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/image-1024x618.png)
As an Authentik user and (kind of) contributor, I instantly recognized this UI as a very poor rebrand of Authentik, which you’ll probably notice too after seeing this screenshot of Authentik’s UI.
![](https://blog.unixfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/authentik-1024x787.jpg)
Obviously, doing something like that, even for commercial purposes, is totally OK given Authentik’s MIT license. But it still doesn’t leave a very good taste in my mouth. I asked about this situation in the Authentik Discord server, and I guess Authentik’s CEO couldn’t help but notice the similarity either.
![](https://blog.unixfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/image-1.png)
Luckily, it turns out 0pass’s CEO is in the Authentik Discord server too and quickly clarified for all of us.
![](https://blog.unixfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/image-2.png)
So, it turns out the issue is TechCrunch’s fact checking and not 0pass. I’m glad it’s not yet another case of SaaS companies profiting off what’s essentially a hosted version of open source software (see CockroachDB’s dilemma, for example) and I’m certainly excited to see what’s next for both Authentik and 0pass.