Editorial take
Why it stands out
OPA should be framed as broad policy infrastructure, not reduced to a simple auth helper.
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Tool profile
General-purpose open-source policy engine for cloud-native authorization, admission control, configuration policy, and decision enforcement.
Cloud-native policy enforcement
Open Policy Agent is worth adding because it is one of the most important policy-infrastructure components in modern cloud-native stacks. The official site positions OPA as a general-purpose policy engine, and in practice it sits across Kubernetes admission control, service authorization, CI/CD policy checks, and configuration enforcement. That makes it more than just an auth tool. It is a policy runtime that many real platforms standardize on.
Its pricing story is simple because OPA itself is open source. The official site, documentation, and repository all treat it as a CNCF project with an Apache 2.0 license. There is no first-party commercial pricing grid for the engine. The cost question is operational: where OPA runs, how broadly it is enforced, and whether the team buys support or adjacent commercial tooling around it.
Quick fit
Editorial take
OPA should be framed as broad policy infrastructure, not reduced to a simple auth helper.
What it does well
Primary use cases
Fit notes
Compare with
Pressure-test this pick against nearby alternatives.
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Pricing snapshot
Open Policy Agent is an open-source CNCF project with no public subscription price. The engine itself is free to use; practical costs come from operating it, integrating it, and any commercial support or tooling a team chooses around it.
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