You’re right that they’re they same. According to the Polkit Wikipedia article,

Since version 0.105, released in 2015 the name of the project was changed from PolicyKit to polkit.

Also, the tag wiki excerpt for policykit is a copy of the first line of the above Wikipedia article,

Polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is a component for controlling system-wide privileges in Unix-like operating systems.

I don’t have enough (any) reputation in these tags to suggest a synonym but I’d recommend that a moderator or high rep user change policykit to be a synonym for the newer name, polkit.

Answer from Anthony Geoghegan on Stack Exchange
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Debian
wiki.debian.org › PolicyKit
PolicyKit - Debian Wiki
While PolicyKit has been replaced by polkit (which rewrote system component, breaking backwards compatibility) in many distributions, Debian continues to use PolicyKit from Debian 7 wheezy through Debian 10 buster.
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Server Fault
serverfault.com › questions › 294367 › policykit-vs-polkit
linux - PolicyKit vs polkit - Server Fault
July 26, 2011 - I do know that the configuration files are different, but seem to serve about the same purpose with different syntax: PolicyKit seems to use /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf with an XML syntax and polkit seems to use many files in /etc/polkit-1/ with an INI-style syntax.

You’re right that they’re they same. According to the Polkit Wikipedia article,

Since version 0.105, released in 2015 the name of the project was changed from PolicyKit to polkit.

Also, the tag wiki excerpt for policykit is a copy of the first line of the above Wikipedia article,

Polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is a component for controlling system-wide privileges in Unix-like operating systems.

I don’t have enough (any) reputation in these tags to suggest a synonym but I’d recommend that a moderator or high rep user change policykit to be a synonym for the newer name, polkit.

Answer from Anthony Geoghegan on Stack Exchange
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Polkit
Polkit - Wikipedia
1 week ago - Polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is a component for controlling system-wide privileges in Unix-like operating systems. It provides an organized way for non-privileged processes to communicate with privileged ones, allowing a level of control of centralized system policy.
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GitHub
github.com › polkit-org › polkit
GitHub - polkit-org/polkit: polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is a toolkit for defining and handling authorizations. It is used for allowing unprivileged processes to speak to privileged processes. · GitHub
polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is a toolkit for defining and handling authorizations. It is used for allowing unprivileged processes to speak to privileged processes. - polkit-org/polkit
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Red Hat
access.redhat.com › documentation › en-us › red_hat_enterprise_linux › 7 › html › desktop_migration_and_administration_guide › policykit
Chapter 4. PolicyKit | Desktop Migration and Administration Guide | Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 7 | Red Hat Documentation
December 22, 2022 - These new .rules files are stored in two locations; whereas polkit rules for local customization are stored in the /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/ directory, the third party packages are stored in /usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d/.
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Arch Linux
arch-general.archlinux.narkive.com › ZbEbgocn › policykit-vs-polkit
policykit vs polkit
What is the difference between these two (policykit and polkit)? Both seems to provide the same package. policykit is dead and being replace by polkit. I think now that KDE 4.4 uses polkit, policykit might in fact be obsolete. policykit and policykit-gnome will die soon.
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ArchWiki
wiki.archlinux.org › title › Polkit
polkit - ArchWiki
Polkit works by delimiting distinct actions, e.g. running GParted, and delimiting users by group or by name, e.g. members of the wheel group. It then defines how – if at all – those users are allowed those actions, e.g.
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GitHub
github.com › lxqt › lxqt-policykit
GitHub - lxqt/lxqt-policykit: The LXQt PolicyKit agent · GitHub
While there's only a single implementation of all other polkit components various different authentication agents are provided by the various desktop environments. Basically these can be used interchangeably, that is lxqt-policykit can be used in an LXDE session or lxpolkit, the authentication agent of LXDE, can be used in an Xfce session.
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ConsoleKit (documentation) was a service which tracks user sessions (i.e. where a user is logged in). It allows switching users without logging out (many users can be logged in on the same hardware at the same time with one user active). It is also used to check if a session is "local" i.e. if a user has direct access to hardware (which may be considered more secure than remote access).

Currently the ConsoleKit is largely replaced by logind, which is part of systemd, although there is standalone version elogind.

polkit (née PolicyKit) documentation allows fine-tuned capabilities in a desktop environment. Traditionally only a privileged user (root) was allowed to configure network. However, while in a server environment it is a reasonable assumption that it would be too limiting to not be allowed to connect to a hotspot on laptop, for example. However, you may still not want to give full privileges to this person (like installing programs) or may want to limit options for some people (for example on your children laptops only 'trusted' networks with parental filters can be used). As far as I remember it works like:

  • Program send message to daemon via dbus about action
  • Daemon uses polkit libraries/configuration (in fact polkit daemon) to determine if a user is allowed to perform an action. It may happen that certain conditions must be fulfilled (like entering password or hardware access).
  • Daemon performs action according to it (returns auth error or performs action)
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/linux4noobs › polkit and its varieties
r/linux4noobs on Reddit: Polkit and its varieties
October 16, 2022 -

Hello guys, as usual, after the fresh installation of arch I noticed, that I can't reboot or shutdown without sudo. All of this can be fixed with polkit. But there are so many versions of it: gnome, mate, xfce, just a standard package named "polkit" etc. What's the difference between all of them? Should I tweak them, or all of them are already preconfigured?

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Gentoo Forums
forums.gentoo.org › viewtopic-t-813043-view-next.html
Gentoo Forums :: View topic - confused: polkit vs.policykit
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LWN.net
lwn.net › Articles › 859075
Why use polkit? [LWN.net]
June 11, 2021 - Posted Jun 11, 2021 0:45 UTC (Fri) by nickodell (subscriber, #125165) Parent article: Privilege escalation with polkit: How to get root on Linux with a seven-year-old bug (GitHub blog)
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/linuxquestions › which polkit?
r/linuxquestions on Reddit: Which polkit?
May 1, 2024 -

I'm looking to ditch desktop environments (for the first time) in the coming weeks, and am researching what packages I'd need on a fresh install without one.

I've stumbled across polkits, but I can't find much information about what the differences are. So I suppose my question really is which polkit do you prefer and why?

Edit: I meant polkit authentication agents instead of polkits.

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Gentoo Wiki
wiki.gentoo.org › wiki › Polkit
polkit - Gentoo wiki
polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is an authorization API intended to be used by privileged programs (e.g.
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SUSE
documentation.suse.com › sles › 12-SP5 › html › SLES-all › cha-security-policykit.html
Authorization with Polkit | Security and Hardening Guide | SLES 12 SP5
April 8, 2026 - Polkit (formerly known as PolicyKit) is an application framework that acts as a negotiator between the unprivileged user session and the privileged system context. Whenever a process from the user session tries to carry out an action in the ...