Alternatives to Clerk
Drop-in authentication and user management for modern apps
Clerk ranks #5 of 12 in Authentication & identity providers, with an Alt Score of 89. It is proprietary, freemium from $25/mo and available on Web, iOS and Android. 12 of 12 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
Clerk is a developer-first authentication and user-management platform with pre-built React/Next.js UI components, social and passwordless login, passkeys, MFA, and B2B organizations, designed to add complete auth in minutes.
Product and engineering teams building web and mobile apps (Next.js, React, Expo, React Router, Astro, and more) who want authentication and user management handled for them rather than built and operated in-house, including B2B SaaS teams that need multi-tenant organizations, enterprise SSO, and RBAC out of the box.
A hosted authentication and user-management platform: drop-in UI components (<SignIn/>, <SignUp/>, <UserProfile/>, <OrganizationSwitcher/>), social login, passwordless and passkey/WebAuthn sign-in, MFA, SAML/OIDC enterprise SSO with SCIM directory sync, B2B Organizations with role-based access control, and a dashboard to manage it all -- free up to 50,000 monthly retained users and 100 monthly retained organizations, then usage-based pricing on paid tiers starting at $25/mo.
Clerk provisions a dedicated Frontend API instance for your application when you create it in the Clerk Dashboard; your app's client talks to that Frontend API directly (often through Clerk's prebuilt components or framework SDKs) while server-side code uses the Backend API and a secret key for administrative actions, so Clerk hosts and runs the authentication infrastructure rather than you deploying it yourself.
Why people leave Clerk
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Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
FusionAuth is a developer-focused authentication and user management platform that can be self-hosted for free (Community Edition) or run as a managed cloud service.
Ory is an open-source identity platform composed of modular services — Kratos for identity/authentication, Hydra for OAuth2/OIDC, and Keto for permissions — that can be self-hosted or consumed as a ma.
Zitadel is an open-source identity and access management platform, written in Go, offering OIDC/OAuth2/SAML, MFA, passwordless, and a native multi-tenant 'organizations' concept designed for SaaS prod.
Auth0 (an Okta company) is a developer-focused identity platform providing authentication, authorization, social and enterprise SSO, MFA, and user management via drop-in SDKs and a hosted login, for w.
Frontegg is a B2B-focused identity platform that bundles authentication, tenant/org management, roles and entitlements, and a pre-built admin portal for end customers.
Stytch is a developer platform for authentication and fraud prevention, offering passwordless and passkey login, social and enterprise SSO, B2B multi-tenant auth, and device fingerprinting through API.
Descope is a customer identity and access management (CIAM) platform that lets developers build authentication journeys (social login, passwordless, MFA, passkeys) with a visual no-code/low-code flow.
WorkOS is a platform of enterprise-readiness APIs — SAML/OIDC single sign-on, SCIM directory sync, audit logs, and its AuthKit user management — that lets B2B SaaS apps add the features enterprise cus.
Keycloak is an open-source identity and access management server (a CNCF project) offering single sign-on, social and enterprise SSO, user federation, MFA, and fine-grained authorization, self-hosted.
Amazon Cognito is AWS's managed customer identity and access management service, providing user pools for sign-up/sign-in, social and enterprise SSO federation, MFA, and native passkey support, plus f.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the Authentication & identity providers checklist (16 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| Authentication & identity providers checklist | Clerk | FusionAuth | Ory | Zitadel | Auth0 | Frontegg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
| Starts at | ||||||
| License | ||||||
| Platforms | ||||||
| Social login | ||||||
| Passwordless / magic links | ||||||
| Passkeys / WebAuthn | ||||||
| MFA | ||||||
| Enterprise SSO (SAML / OIDC) | ||||||
| SCIM provisioning | ||||||
| B2B org / multi-tenant | ||||||
| Self-hostable | ||||||
| Pre-built UI components | ||||||
| RBAC / permissions | ||||||
| Open source | ||||||
| Generous free tier (MAUs) |
Every fact and feature listed for Clerk is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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License Proprietary verified 2026-07-13
Price (monthly) | Free | $25/mo | $300/mo | Custom
https://clerk.com/pricing -
Starts at $25/mo verified 2026-07-13
Pro — $25/mo ($20/mo billed annually)
https://clerk.com/pricing -
Pricing model Freemium verified 2026-07-13
Hobby — Free ... Everything you need to start building. No credit card required.
https://clerk.com/pricing -
Platforms Web, iOS, Android verified 2026-07-13
Hooks, components, and native sign-in flows for iOS, Android, and web from one codebase.
https://clerk.com/expo-authentication -
Status active verified 2026-07-13
CLI 2.0 adds a local webhooks toolkit, one-command user impersonation, and a refreshed interactive experience — built for you and your agents.
https://clerk.com/changelog/2026-07-09-clerk-cli-webhooks-and-impersonate -
Social login Yes verified 2026-07-13
Social connections, also known as OAuth connections in Clerk, allow users to gain access to your application by using their existing credentials from an Identity Provider (IdP), like Google or Microso
https://clerk.com/docs/nextjs/guides/configure/auth-strategies/social-connections/overview.md -
Passwordless / magic links Yes verified 2026-07-13
Email links can be used to sign up new users, sign in existing users, or allow existing users to verify newly added email addresses to their user profiles.
https://clerk.com/docs/nextjs/guides/development/custom-flows/authentication/email-links.md -
Passkeys / WebAuthn Yes verified 2026-07-13
Pricing page lists Passkeys as No on the free Hobby tier, Yes on Pro and Business.
Clerk supports passwordless authentication via passkeys, enabling users to sign in without having to remember a password. Instead, users select a passkey associated with their device, which they can u
https://clerk.com/docs/guides/development/custom-flows/authentication/passkeys.md -
MFA Yes verified 2026-07-13
Pricing page lists Multifactor authentication (MFA) as No on the free Hobby tier, Yes on Pro ($25/mo) and Business.
If you have multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled for your application, the sign-in attempt will return a status of needs_second_factor.
https://clerk.com/docs/guides/development/custom-flows/authentication/multi-factor-authentication.md -
Enterprise SSO (SAML / OIDC) Yes verified 2026-07-13
Free in development instances (up to 25 connections); production requires the Pro plan or higher, with 1 connection included and $75/mo per additional connection.
Clerk supports Enterprise SSO via the SAML protocol, enabling you to create authentication strategies for an IdP. ... Clerk supports Enterprise SSO via the OpenID Connect (OIDC) protocol
https://clerk.com/docs/guides/configure/auth-strategies/enterprise-connections/overview.md -
SCIM provisioning Yes verified 2026-07-13
Requires an existing SAML or OIDC Enterprise Connection, which is gated to the Pro plan or higher in production.
Directory Sync is generally available and enabled for all users. Clerk's implementation follows the SCIM 2.0 protocol.
https://clerk.com/docs/guides/configure/auth-strategies/enterprise-connections/directory-sync.md -
B2B org / multi-tenant Yes verified 2026-07-13
Organizations let you group users with Roles and Permissions. This lets you build multi-tenant B2B apps like Slack (workspaces), Linear (teams), or Vercel (projects) where users switch between differe
https://clerk.com/docs/guides/organizations/overview.md -
Self-hostable No verified 2026-07-13
Clerk provisions and operates your application's Frontend/Backend API instances on Clerk's own cloud infrastructure; there is no self-hosted or on-premise deployment option.
When you create a new application through the Clerk Dashboard, Clerk provisions a dedicated frontend API (FAPI) instance for your application.
https://clerk.com/docs/guides/how-clerk-works/overview.md -
Pre-built UI components Yes verified 2026-07-13
The <SignIn /> component renders a UI to allow users to sign in or sign up by default.
https://clerk.com/docs/nextjs/reference/components/authentication/sign-in.md -
RBAC / permissions Yes verified 2026-07-13
Requires a paid plan for production use; free to try in development mode.
Roles and Permissions let you control who can access specific resources and perform certain actions within each Organization. Clerk provides two default Roles - admin and member - that cover most comm
https://clerk.com/docs/guides/organizations/control-access/roles-and-permissions.md -
Open source Partial verified 2026-07-13
Clerk's client/server SDKs and prebuilt-component code (github.com/clerk) are MIT-licensed and published in the open, but the hosted authentication service/backend itself is closed, proprietary SaaS -
MIT License Copyright (c) 2022 Clerk Inc
https://github.com/clerk/javascript/blob/main/LICENSE -
Generous free tier (MAUs) Yes verified 2026-07-13
Clerk bills on Monthly Retained Users (MRU), not raw MAU -- a user only counts after returning at least 24 hours after signup, so the effective free allowance is generous relative to a simple MAU coun
50,000 MRU (monthly retained user) limit per app
https://clerk.com/pricing
FAQ
Yes. FusionAuth, Zitadel and Auth0 have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
Ory, Zitadel and Keycloak — every license claim links its source.