Best Clerk Alternatives 2026
Authentication and user management for web and mobile apps.. Find free, indie, and cheaper options that work for your team.
Want to calculate your exact savings from Clerk?
Calculate Clerk Savings →What is Clerk?
Clerk provides drop-in UI components and APIs for sign-up, sign-in, multi-factor authentication, session management, and organization/B2B user management. It's built for developers who want to ship auth quickly without building it from scratch, with SDKs for React, Next.js, Remix, and other frameworks.
Key Features
Why Look for Clerk Alternatives?
Clerk's free tier covers 10,000 MAUs, but costs climb quickly once you scale, and there's no way to self-host or avoid the per-MAU pricing model. Teams with tight budgets or infrastructure-control requirements often look at open-source or platform-bundled auth instead.
Common Pain Points
- •MAU-based pricing scales up fast once you pass the free tier
- •Vendor lock-in with proprietary session tokens and user data model
- •No self-hosting option — fully dependent on Clerk's cloud
- •B2B/organizations features add extra cost on top of the base plan
- •Migrating away later means rebuilding auth flows and re-verifying users
Best Clerk Alternatives (5)
Supabase Auth
$0
100% savings
Open-source auth built into the Supabase platform, with a generous free tier covering up to 50,000 monthly active users.
Best for: Teams already using or considering Supabase for their database
Note: Free tier projects pause after a week of inactivity
Visit Supabase Auth →Firebase Authentication
$0
100% savings
Google's authentication service with free, unlimited email/password and OAuth sign-ins, plus pay-as-you-go phone auth.
Best for: Mobile-first apps already on Google Cloud or Firebase
Note: Phone/SMS auth incurs per-verification costs after the free tier
Visit Firebase Authentication →
Amazon Cognito
$0
100% savings
AWS's managed user directory and auth service, free for the first 50,000 monthly active users.
Best for: Teams already running infrastructure on AWS
Note: Steeper learning curve and less polished default UI components
Visit Amazon Cognito →SuperTokens
$0
100% savings
Open-source authentication solution you can self-host for free, with prebuilt UI and session management similar to Clerk.
Best for: Teams wanting full control via self-hosting without recurring fees
Note: Self-hosting requires managing your own servers and updates
Visit SuperTokens →Auth0
$35/mo
Okta's enterprise-grade auth platform with a free tier for small apps and paid plans for advanced features like organizations and enterprise SSO.
Best for: Teams needing enterprise SSO or compliance features Clerk doesn't offer
Note: Paid plans are generally more expensive than Clerk at similar scale
Visit Auth0 →How to export your data from Clerk
CSV, JSON (via Backend API) · verified against official docs
Clerk head-to-head
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All Dev Tools alternatives →What would you save without Clerk?
Pick your team size and see the yearly number.
Tips for Switching from Clerk
Clerk alternatives: common questions
How do I export my user data from Clerk before switching?+
Use Clerk's Backend API or the dashboard's export feature to pull user records, including emails, metadata, and OAuth connections. Password hashes are not exportable in most cases, so users will need to reset their passwords after migration.
What do I lose if I move away from Clerk?+
You lose the prebuilt, polished sign-in/sign-up UI components and the built-in organizations/B2B management features. You'll need to build or configure equivalent UI and RBAC logic yourself with most alternatives, which adds development time upfront.
Is the free tier of alternatives like Supabase or Firebase enough for a small team?+
Yes, for most small teams. Supabase's free tier covers 50,000 MAUs and Firebase Authentication is free for unlimited email/password and OAuth sign-ins, both well beyond what a small team's app typically needs before generating revenue.
Do these alternatives integrate with Next.js and React like Clerk does?+
Yes, Supabase, Firebase, and AWS Cognito all have official SDKs and community libraries for React and Next.js. The integration is less turnkey than Clerk's — you'll write more of the auth UI and hooks yourself instead of dropping in prebuilt components.
How much would I actually save switching from Clerk long-term?+
If you're past 10,000 MAU on Clerk's Pro plan ($25/mo + $0.02/MAU), moving to Supabase or Firebase's free tiers can save $25-$100+/month depending on user volume, since both cover tens of thousands of MAUs at no cost. Savings grow the larger your user base gets.
Pro Tips
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