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Open source alternatives to Clerk[008]

Clerk provides drop-in authentication and user management with prebuilt UI components, sessions, MFA and organisations. Below are 8 self-hostable open source alternatives, ranked by GitHub popularity.

// AUTH & SECURITY№ 001
Better Auth

Better Auth

TYPESCRIPT

The authentication framework for TypeScript

★ STARS

28.2k

⑂ FORKS

2.5k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AUTH & SECURITY№ 002
Authentik

Authentik

PYTHON

The authentication glue you need

★ STARS

21.4k

⑂ FORKS

1.6k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AUTH & SECURITY№ 003
Ory Hydra

Ory Hydra

GO

OpenID Certified™ OpenID Connect and OAuth Provider written in Go

★ STARS

17.1k

⑂ FORKS

1.5k

OPEN PROJECT→
// DEVELOPER TOOLS№ 004
SuperTokens

SuperTokens

JAVA

Open source alternative to Auth0 / AWS Cognito / Firebase Auth

★ STARS

15.0k

⑂ FORKS

662

OPEN PROJECT→
// AUTH & SECURITY№ 005
Zitadel

Zitadel

GO

Identity infrastructure, simplified for you.

★ STARS

13.7k

⑂ FORKS

1.1k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AUTH & SECURITY№ 006
Logto

Logto

TYPESCRIPT

Authentication and authorization infrastructure for SaaS and AI apps, built on OIDC and OAuth 2.1 with multi-tenancy, SSO, and RBAC.

★ STARS

12.0k

⑂ FORKS

793

OPEN PROJECT→
// AUTH & SECURITY№ 007
Hanko

Hanko

GO

Authentication and user management for the passkey era

★ STARS

8.9k

⑂ FORKS

1.0k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AUTH & SECURITY№ 008
Authgear

Authgear

GO

Open source Auth0/Clerk/Firebase alternative. Passkeys, SSO, MFA, passwordless, biometric login. Self-hosted or cloud. Enterprise-ready for SaaS & mobile apps

★ STARS

1.7k

⑂ FORKS

112

OPEN PROJECT→

// EDITOR'S TAKE

Better Auth is the closest on developer experience for TypeScript apps, though you assemble the login UI that Clerk hands you ready-made. Zitadel and Logto are better when you want a full identity server with organisations, multi-tenancy and hosted login pages, while Ory Hydra is only the OAuth and OIDC piece.

// FREQUENTLY ASKED

What is the best open source Clerk alternative?

Better Auth is the most popular open source Clerk alternative by GitHub stars (28,212 stars). The other 7 options are ranked above.

Are these Clerk alternatives self-hostable?

Yes — every project listed here is open source and runs on your own infrastructure. Click into a project to see its license, stars, language, and current health status.

Are they free?

All projects shown are free and open source. Check each project's license page for the terms — most are MIT, Apache 2.0, or AGPL.

// PART OF THESE COLLECTIONS

Hold Your Own Keys14