AppBreakup
Submit an app
Cl

Clerk

Drop-in authentication and user management with prebuilt UI components for React and Next.js apps.

Free plan + paidAuthentication providers
Visit ClerkSee 7 alternatives
Verified facts
4 of 4
Alternatives ranked
7
Approved reviews
0
Visits sent from here
0

About Clerk

Clerk is a hosted auth service built around ready-made components: you add sign-in, sign-up, user profile and organisation switcher widgets to your app and Clerk handles sessions, passwords, social logins, passkeys, MFA and bot protection behind them. It is especially popular in the Next.js and React world, with first-class SDKs for those frameworks, though it also supports Remix, Astro, Expo, plain JavaScript and several back-end languages. B2B features include organisations, roles, invitations, enterprise SSO and directory sync, and newer products add billing and API keys for machine access. The free Hobby plan covers a lot of users, and paid plans add a monthly base price plus per-user and per-connection charges. It is a cloud-only service, so your user data lives with Clerk. Developers like how quickly it gets a polished login working; the trade-off is less control over flows than a self-hosted library.

Best for: React and Next.js developers who want polished sign-in screens working in minutes.

Pros and cons

What works

  • Prebuilt, customisable UI components save weeks of work
  • Excellent Next.js and React integration
  • Generous free tier per application

Why people leave

  • Cloud only; user data cannot be self-hosted
  • Enterprise SSO connections are billed individually
  • Less flexible than code-first libraries for unusual flows

Top Clerk alternatives

See all 7
  1. 1Auth0 logo
    Auth0

    More mature enterprise features and SDK coverage beyond the JavaScript world.

    66.5
  2. 2Better Auth logo
    Better Auth

    Free open-source TypeScript library that keeps users in your own database.

    62.6
  3. 3Kinde logo
    Kinde

    Similar developer-friendly hosted auth with billing and feature flags included.

    59.6
  4. 4St
    Stytch

    API-first alternative with strong fraud and bot protection for consumer and B2B apps.

    57.2
  5. 5WorkOS logo
    WorkOS

    Free for the first million users and strong on enterprise SSO for B2B products.

    55.3

Why people left Clerk

In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.

No switching stories yet. If you moved away from Clerk, review the app you switched to and tell us why.

Reviews

No approved reviews yet. How we verify reviewers

Write a review of Clerk
Your rating of Clerk

Never shown publicly. A work email helps us verify you.

What did you use it for, and what was good or bad? At least 40 characters.

A GitHub username, your company domain, or say you can send a screenshot. Verified reviews count more.

By submitting, you confirm you're at least 16 and agree to our terms. Your name, rating, review and the date are published; your email isn't. See our privacy policy.

Clerk: common questions

Is Clerk free?

Clerk has a free plan and paid plans. Free plan: Up to 50,000 monthly retained users per app (checked on Clerk's own site).

Is Clerk open source?

No, Clerk is not open source. Open-source alternatives include Better Auth, SuperTokens and Supabase.

What platforms does Clerk run on?

Clerk is available for Web, iOS and Android.

What are the best alternatives to Clerk?

The highest-ranked Clerk alternatives right now are Auth0, Better Auth and Kinde. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 7 Clerk alternatives