Keycloak is awesome, but whenever I used it the documentation gave me too little guidance. On how to use it in the right way, without having to customize it too much.

how is this related to better auth ? In my understanding, keycloak and better auth are fundamentally different. I would compare keycloak more with Ory for example.

I really want to love KeyCloak. I've had really bad experiences with weird uptime bugs and crash loops that kept me from giving it an honest retry over the last couple years.

It also really shows its age, imo. The interface is clunky, roles and groups having overlapping responsibilities is confusing, making custom UIs for it makes me feel ancient, etc.

I really can't complain though. There is simply no alternative that's as open atm. It's also not easy to make one ( I tried :( ).

Is keycloak still the only real game in town for open source authorization (not authentication; that part is totally fungible)?