Install pomerium with Homebrew, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• pomerium

Project history

Founder Bobby Allen wrote the original Pomerium code in 2019 to rethink application access control for networks that could no longer be treated as trusted.

The open-source project evolved into Pomerium Core, the self-managed server and data plane. Managed and enterprise control planes were subsequently built around Core for organizations wanting centralized operations, governance, or hosted management.

Adoption history

Pomerium's official history records its founding in 2019, followed by investment and broad operational adoption. The project expanded from an open-source proxy into Core, managed-control-plane, and self-hosted enterprise deployment models while retaining Core as the shared data-plane engine.

How it is used

Configure an identity provider, secrets, and protected routes in `config.yaml` or environment variables, then run the all-in-one service for the simplest deployment. Larger or security-constrained installations can split proxy, authenticate, authorize, and databroker responsibilities.

Place Pomerium in front of internal applications and define identity- and context-aware route policy. Users authenticate through the configured identity provider, after which Pomerium authorizes each request before forwarding it upstream.

Why package nerds care

Pomerium packages authentication, authorization, proxying, and session data services into a deployable identity-aware gateway. It brings BeyondCorp-style per-request policy enforcement to self-hosted infrastructure without requiring a traditional network VPN.

For operators and packagers, it is notable for supporting a compact all-in-one binary as well as split services, containers, Kubernetes, and operating-system packages. The same declarative configuration can describe identity-provider integration, routes, policy, certificates, and storage.

Timeline

• 2019: Pomerium is founded and the original access-proxy code is written.
• 2020s: The project expands into Core, managed Zero, and self-hosted Enterprise deployment models.

Related projects

• OAuth2 Proxy is a narrower authentication reverse proxy and static-file server, useful when validating users through OAuth providers is sufficient without Pomerium's broader context-aware policy model.
• Cloudflare Access with `cloudflared` offers identity-aware access through Cloudflare's managed network and is a deployment-model alternative to operating Pomerium Core yourself.

Sources

• https://www.pomerium.com/about/
• https://www.pomerium.com/core
• https://www.pomerium.com/docs
• https://www.pomerium.com/docs/internals/configuration