Better Auth vs Clerk vs Supabase

Better Auth, Clerk, Supabase side by side: price, free tier, who each one fits and when to skip it.

Item	Better Auth	Clerk	Supabase
What it does	Open source TypeScript auth library that runs inside your app and keeps users in your own database.	Drop-in login and user management with ready-made sign-in screens for React and Next.js.	Postgres database with login, file storage, edge functions and realtime in one project.
Best for	A founder who wants users in their own Postgres and no per-user bill as the SaaS grows.	A Next.js SaaS that needs Google login, user profiles and team accounts by tomorrow, without designing a single auth screen.	A solo founder who wants login, database and uploads in one place, with a region close to their users so the app feels fast.
Skip it if	You don't want to own security updates, email delivery and session bugs yourself.	You sell B2B to lots of small companies, since organizations are a paid add-on billed per active organization.	You plan to leave a free project idle while you validate, since free projects get paused after a week without activity.
Setup	Needs a developer. Email and Google login in a day for someone who codes; emails, rate limits and testing take a couple more days.	Needs a developer. Working login in about an hour; going live takes up to 48 hours waiting for DNS.	Needs a developer. Login and a first table in an afternoon; access rules and email setup take another day or two.
Price	Free (you host it); optional dashboard from $20/month	Free; Pro $25/month ($20 billed yearly)	Free, then Pro from $25/month plus usage
What it costs in practice	With 2,000 monthly active users, the library itself is $0; you pay only for the server and database you already run. If you want their hosted dashboard with email sending, Pro is $20/month plus $0.001 per email: about 4,000 emails a month adds $4, around $24/month (estimate).	A SaaS with 2,000 users returning each month stays on the free plan: $0. If you want MFA and your own branding, Pro is $25/month ($20 billed yearly). With 150 active customer teams, add 50 × $1 = $50, about $75/month in total (estimate).	A SaaS with 2,000 monthly active users and a 3 GB database outgrows the free 500 MB, so it goes to Pro: $25/month, which already covers one Micro server, 100k users, 8 GB of disk and 250 GB of egress. Add $10 for a custom domain on login and you're at about $35/month (estimate, in dollars).
Free plan	The library is free and open source (MIT) and you host it; the optional dashboard has a free plan.	Up to 50k monthly retained users per app, no card required.	2 projects, 50k monthly users, 500 MB database and 1 GB of files; paused after a week idle.
Free tier	Unlimited (runs on your server)	50k retained users/month	50k MAU, 500 MB DB, 1 GB files
Price for 10k monthly users	Free, you only pay your own hosting	Free (within the 50k free tier)	Free (Pro: $25/mo, 100k MAU included)
Self-host	Yes, it always runs in your app	No	Yes, open source
Open source	Yes: yes	No: no	Yes: yes
Before you build	It needs a server and a database: the handler has to run on a backend route, and users are stored in tables you manage. It doesn't send email: you write the function that sends verification and password reset emails through your own provider. Rate limiting is off in development and kept in memory by default, which doesn't hold up on serverless hosts; you have to move it to a database. Security fixes are yours to apply: in 2026 the project published several critical and high advisories, including account takeover bugs.	Production needs a domain you own: a free host address like yourapp.vercel.app is refused, since Clerk needs DNS records on it. The free plan has no MFA, no passkeys, no SMS codes and keeps the Clerk badge; those start on Pro at $25/month. On the free plan, sessions are fixed at 7 days, so users have to log in again every week; changing that requires Pro. Organizations are billed separately: 100 active ones are included, then $1 each per month, and custom roles are a $100/month add-on.	Free projects are paused after one week without activity, and you get only 2 free projects across all your organizations. The built-in email only reaches members of your Supabase team, at about 2 emails an hour. Real users get no confirmation or reset email until you plug in your own SMTP. Phone login doesn't send SMS by itself: you open an account with Twilio, MessageBird or Vonage and pay them per message. The free plan has no automatic backups; Pro keeps 7 days, and point-in-time restore is an add-on of about $100/month. The Pro fee is per organization, but each project runs its own server: every extra project adds compute (Micro is $10/month) on top.
Price checked	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing

Prices are read from each official pricing page on the date shown and can change. Always confirm before signing up.

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Supabase vs Clerk vs Better Auth

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