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Side-by-side comparison

Pick up to four tools and compare adoption, momentum and maintenance at a glance. The crown marks the leader in each row.

Framework-agnostic TypeScript auth library with plugins for 2FA, orgs and passkeys; now stewards Auth.js.

Formerly NextAuth.js; widely deployed OAuth/session library, now security-maintained by the Better Auth team.

Strategy-based authentication middleware for Express with 500+ strategies; mature but slow-moving.

Hosted auth and user management with drop-in UI components, popular in the Next.js ecosystem.

Head to head

Metric	Better Auth	Auth.js	Passport.js	Clerk
Stars	30.6k	28.4k	23.5k	n/a
Weekly downloads	18.9M	9.4M	10.2M	3.6M
Download growth	+126%	+33%	+8%	+49%
Popularity score	86/100	84/100	83/100	80/100
Forks	3.1k	4k	1.2k	n/a
Open issues	980	605	397	n/a
Last commit	6d ago	3mo ago	2y ago	n/a
Latest version	1.7.21	4.24.15	0.7.0	7.9.25
License	MIT	ISC	MIT	n/a
First released	2024	2018	2011	n/a
Signals	Trending	Legacy	None	None
Listed in	Backend › Authentication Libraries	Backend › Authentication Libraries	Backend › Authentication Libraries	Backend › Authentication Libraries Security & Identity › Identity providers & SSO

Hover for exact values; switch to log scale for tools of very different sizes.

Framework-agnostic TypeScript auth library with plugins for 2FA, orgs and passkeys; now stewards Auth.js.

Formerly NextAuth.js; widely deployed OAuth/session library, now security-maintained by the Better Auth team.

Strategy-based authentication middleware for Express with 500+ strategies; mature but slow-moving.

Hosted auth and user management with drop-in UI components, popular in the Next.js ecosystem.

Metric	Better Auth	Auth.js	Passport.js	Clerk
Stars	30.6k	28.4k	23.5k	n/a
Weekly downloads	18.9M	9.4M	10.2M	3.6M
Download growth	+126%	+33%	+8%	+49%
Popularity score	86/100	84/100	83/100	80/100
Forks	3.1k	4k	1.2k	n/a
Open issues	980	605	397	n/a
Last commit	6d ago	3mo ago	2y ago	n/a
Latest version	1.7.21	4.24.15	0.7.0	7.9.25
License	MIT	ISC	MIT	n/a
First released	2024	2018	2011	n/a
Signals	Trending	Legacy	None	None
Listed in	Backend › Authentication Libraries	Backend › Authentication Libraries	Backend › Authentication Libraries	Backend › Authentication Libraries Security & Identity › Identity providers & SSO

Hover for exact values; switch to log scale for tools of very different sizes.