Ory is the largest open source community in the world for cloud software application security. We maintain advanced open source security software solving authentication, authorization, access control, application network security, and delegation. Ory implements a variety of industry and best-practice standards including OAuth 2.0 / OAuth 2.1, OpenID Connect, Zero Trust Networking, Google Zanzibar Policy Framework, FIDO2 U2F, WebAuthn, TOTP, and more.

Ory Community

Yes, self-hosted won't charge you (at least Ory doesn't)

Screenshot 2023-10-31 at 12.11.01.png

While the software itself is distributed on a permissible license, it is not free to self-host Ory.

In this blogpost you get more details what it means to self-host and the differences: <https://www.ory.sh/ory-network-or-self-hosting-explained-use-cases/>

I would argue self-hosting is almost always more expensive, except in some very special usecases.