Open Source Clerk Alternatives

Hanko is an open source authentication platform that handles user onboarding and login for web applications. It covers the full range of modern auth methods: passkeys, email passcodes, passwords, social logins, SSO, and multi-factor authentication with TOTP apps or security keys. You can mix and match these into exactly the flows your app needs.

It's built for developer teams who want solid auth without building it from scratch or handing full control to a closed-source provider like Auth0. Unlike Keycloak, which is powerful but notoriously complex to configure, Hanko is designed to integrate in minutes. Unlike Logto or Stack Auth, Hanko puts particular emphasis on passkeys as a first-class citizen.

Key capabilities:

• Hanko Elements are drop-in Web Components for login, registration, and account management. They work with any web stack and require only HTML and JavaScript.
• Flow API drives your authentication frontend state, so your UI always knows what step to show next, whether that's email verification, MFA enrollment, or a passkey prompt.
• Profile Element gives users a self-service UI for password resets, session management, passkey registration, and MFA setup.
• Social login and SSO support out of the box, including Google and other OAuth providers.
• Flexible hosting: run it on your own servers, use Hanko Cloud, or have the team manage a private cloud environment on infrastructure you choose.

Hanko is developed by a Germany-based team and offers EU hosting options, making it a practical fit for teams with GDPR obligations. It supports multiple languages and is designed to stay GDPR compliant by default.

For teams evaluating Better Auth or Authentik, Hanko sits in a distinct position: it's opinionated toward passkey-first flows while still being flexible enough to support legacy password auth during a gradual migration.

Better Auth is a powerful authentication framework built specifically for TypeScript applications. It provides a complete suite of authentication features including email and password authentication, social sign-on with providers like GitHub and Google, two-factor authentication, and multi-tenant support with organization management.

The framework is designed to be framework-agnostic, supporting popular frameworks like React, Vue, Svelte, Next.js, Nuxt, and more. It offers a plugin ecosystem that allows you to extend functionality, and comes with built-in session management and access control capabilities.

Key benefits include:

• Type-safe API with full TypeScript support
• Auto-generated database schemas for users and sessions
• Simple integration with just a few lines of code
• Flexible deployment options with your own infrastructure
• Enterprise-ready with multi-tenant and team features

authentik is a powerful, open-source identity and access management solution designed to give organizations full control over their authentication and authorization needs. Here's why authentik stands out:

1. Self-hosted and Open Source:

   • Deploy anywhere, maintaining complete control over your sensitive data
   • Continuously reviewed by community experts, ensuring transparency and security

2. Flexible and Customizable:

   • Pre-built workflows for quick setup
   • Fully customizable authentication steps through configurable templates
   • Comprehensive APIs for advanced automation

3. Enterprise-Grade Features:

   • Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
   • Conditional access
   • Application proxy
   • Support for multiple protocols (SAML2, OAuth2, OIDC, SCIM, LDAP, RADIUS)

4. Scalable and Easy to Deploy:

   • Supports Kubernetes, Terraform, and Docker Compose
   • Designed for both B2B and B2C use cases

5. Comprehensive Identity Solution:

   • Authentication
   • User enrollment
   • Self-service capabilities

6. Cost-Effective:

   • Streamlined pricing with no hidden costs
   • Core functionality included without extra charges

authentik empowers organizations to prioritize security, simplify deployment, and automate identity workflows. Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise, authentik provides the tools and flexibility to meet your specific identity and access management needs.

SuperTokens is an open-source authentication solution that provides developers with a powerful, flexible, and secure way to implement user management in their applications. With SuperTokens, you can easily add robust authentication features to your web and mobile apps while maintaining full control over your user data.

Key benefits of SuperTokens include:

• Self-hosted: Keep your user data on your own servers, ensuring complete data ownership and privacy compliance.
• Customizable: Tailor the authentication flow and UI to match your brand and specific requirements.
• Multi-tenancy support: Easily manage multiple apps or organizations within a single instance.
• Comprehensive features: Includes session management, social logins, passwordless auth, and more out of the box.
• Language agnostic: Supports various backend languages and frameworks, making it versatile for different tech stacks.
• Active community: Benefit from continuous improvements, updates, and support from a growing open-source community.
• Easy integration: Well-documented SDKs and APIs make implementation straightforward for developers.
• Scalable: Designed to handle high traffic and grow with your application's needs.

By choosing SuperTokens, you're not just getting an authentication solution; you're gaining a flexible, secure, and future-proof foundation for your user management needs. Whether you're building a small project or a large-scale application, SuperTokens provides the tools and flexibility to create a seamless authentication experience for your users.

ZITADEL is an all-in-one identity suite designed to streamline application development with robust authentication and authorization capabilities.

Key features:

• Customizable hosted login: Easily authenticate users with a branded, customizable login page
• Modern authentication methods: Support for SSO, social logins, and multi-factor authentication
• Role-based access control: Assign permissions based on user roles for granular authorization
• Multi-tenant architecture: Built-in support for B2B scenarios with organization management
• Extensibility: Customize workflows and integrate ZITADEL into existing systems with Actions
• Developer-friendly: Modern APIs (gRPC and REST) with comprehensive documentation
• Flexible deployment: Run ZITADEL as a managed service or self-host for full control

ZITADEL empowers developers to offload complex identity tasks while maintaining adaptability. With security defaults and custom code extensions, it provides a solid foundation for building scalable applications with sophisticated user management.

Whether you need authentication for a small project or enterprise-grade identity infrastructure, ZITADEL offers the flexibility to grow with your needs. Focus on building your core product features while ZITADEL handles the intricacies of identity management.

Ory provides a modern and modular approach to identity and access management (IAM) that scales, offers unmatched user experience and deployment flexibility, and only charges for what is used.

Key benefits of Ory include:

• Uninterrupted performance even under demanding conditions, ensuring no revenue loss during peak demand
• Comprehensive visibility and fully configurable options to balance user experience, privacy and security
• Unmatched flexibility for customization beyond just branding, including UI, workflows, standards, deployment, scale and security
• Integrations and SDKs for all modern and legacy frameworks
• Migration guides to easily move from home-grown or other IAM solutions
• Trusted by over 30,000 companies, from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises
• Available as open source, self-hosted, or fully managed cloud offering

Ory allows you to build a unified identity system that meets all your needs, whether you're looking for authentication, authorization, user management, or a complete IAM platform. With options for self-hosting or using the managed Ory Network, you can get started quickly and scale seamlessly as your needs grow.

Logto is a powerful, open-source identity platform designed to simplify authentication and user management for modern applications. With its robust features and flexible architecture, Logto enables developers to implement secure, seamless authentication flows while providing an exceptional user experience.

Key benefits of Logto include:

• Customizable login experiences: Tailor the authentication process to match your brand and user preferences, creating a cohesive and engaging login flow.
• Multi-tenant support: Easily manage multiple applications and organizations within a single Logto instance, streamlining your identity infrastructure.
• Comprehensive user management: Gain full control over user data, roles, and permissions with intuitive tools for efficient user administration.
• Enterprise-grade security: Implement industry-standard security protocols and best practices to protect user identities and sensitive information.
• Extensible architecture: Integrate Logto seamlessly with your existing tech stack and extend its functionality through a wide range of connectors and APIs.
• Open-source advantage: Benefit from community-driven development, transparency, and the ability to customize the solution to your specific needs.

Whether you're building a small application or managing a complex ecosystem of services, Logto provides the tools and flexibility to create secure, user-friendly authentication experiences that scale with your business.

Stack Auth is the open-source alternative to Auth0, offering a comprehensive authentication and user management solution for developers. With Stack Auth, you can implement secure authentication, authorization, and user management features in your applications in just 5 minutes.

Key benefits of Stack Auth include:

• Quick setup: Get started with authentication in your Next.js project using the setup wizard.
• Beautiful integration: Enjoy lean and responsive design with pre-styled components that developers and users will love.
• Flexible implementation: Choose between headless or headful UI options to fit your project needs.
• Advanced features: Benefit from password authentication, SSO, 2FA, organizations & teams, permissions & RBAC, and more.
• Developer-friendly: Built for developers, Stack Auth is simple to understand, use, and integrate into your tech stack.
• Open-source and self-hostable: Maintain full control over your authentication infrastructure.

Stack Auth provides a REST API and client/server SDKs for custom integrations. It also offers features like user impersonation for debugging and webhooks for syncing with other services.

With its open-source nature and developer-first approach, Stack Auth offers a powerful, flexible, and cost-effective solution for authentication and user management in your applications.

Authgear is a managed authentication and SSO platform built for developers who need to handle complex identity requirements without building auth infrastructure from scratch. It covers the full range: login flows, multi-factor authentication, biometrics, Single Sign-On, and fine-grained access control, all through a low-code setup that keeps integration overhead low.

It's designed to work for both B2C products (where you're managing large volumes of end users) and B2B setups with multi-tenant hierarchies, role-based permissions, and enterprise identity providers. Real-world deployments include integrating Azure AD for internal staff while routing external users through WhatsApp OTP, or adding biometric login to mobile apps without rearchitecting the backend.

Key capabilities include:

• Multiple login methods: passwords, biometrics, phone OTP, social login, and passkeys
• SSO across services: users authenticate once and move between microservices without re-logging in
• JWT-based access control: tokens issued per request, aligned with zero-trust principles
• Granular authorization: role- and permission-based access controls tied to user context
• Centralized identity for microservices: one identity layer instead of fragmented auth per service
• MFA and 2FA: configurable second factors including biometrics and OTP
• Custom branding: white-label login flows to match your product

Compared to self-hosted options like Keycloak or authentik, Authgear trades configuration depth for operational simplicity. It's ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certified, which matters for enterprise procurement. If you're evaluating managed alternatives to Okta or AWS Cognito, Authgear positions itself as a developer-friendly middle ground with enterprise compliance built in.

A free trial is available for teams evaluating it before committing.

Complete B2B authentication platform that handles everything from user login to enterprise-grade security features. Build sophisticated user management systems without the complexity of developing auth infrastructure from scratch.

Key features include:

• Pre-built login UI that matches your brand styling and supports multiple authentication methods
• Enterprise SSO integration with SAML and SCIM provisioning for major identity providers like Microsoft Entra and Okta
• Fine-grained authorization with custom roles and permissions management for your customers
• Managed API keys with custom scopes and revocation capabilities
• Advanced security features including passkeys, TOTP authenticator apps, and phishing-resistant MFA

Developer-friendly implementation with SDKs for all major frameworks including Next.js, React, Flask, Express.js, and Go. The platform includes user impersonation for customer support, real-time webhooks, and role-based access control that can be implemented with just one line of code.

Perfect for B2B SaaS companies looking to add enterprise-ready authentication and user management without building complex auth infrastructure in-house.