Best Auth0 Alternatives for Adding Auth to Your SaaS in 2026
Auth0's free tier is generous but their paid plans start at $240/year and lock you in. Here are the auth providers indie makers actually use.
Authentication feels like a commodity until you try to build it yourself and realize how much edge case handling, security maintenance, and compliance work is baked into a good auth provider. The real question is not whether to use a managed auth service, but which one fits your stack, your budget, and your growth trajectory without locking you in.
The auth provider decision
Auth0's free plan (7,500 MAU) is genuinely usable for early-stage products. The lock-in risk is that migrating auth providers is painful: user passwords and sessions are tied to the provider. Choosing wrong early costs you later. The three questions to ask: How does the free tier scale? What happens to pricing at 1,000 then 10,000 MAU? And how easy is it to export your users if you need to switch?
Quick comparison
The best alternatives in detail
Clerk
Has become the default choice for Next.js indie makers. It handles UI components (sign-in, sign-up, user profile) as well as the auth backend, which means you get a complete authentication UX without writing a single form. Free up to 10,000 MAU. The developer experience is the best in the category, and their Next.js App Router integration is first-class.
Supabase Auth
The natural choice if you are already using Supabase for your database. Auth is included in the free tier (50,000 MAU), supports email, OAuth providers, magic links, and phone OTP. No extra service to manage: it is all in one place. For a Supabase stack, this is the obvious answer.
NextAuth.js (Auth.js)
The open-source option for Next.js projects. Free, self-hosted, supports 50+ OAuth providers. The tradeoff is that you manage the infrastructure and handle database sessions yourself. Worthwhile if you want zero vendor dependency and are comfortable with the setup work.
Firebase Auth
The choice if you are in the Google ecosystem. No MAU limit on the free plan for most auth methods, supports all major OAuth providers, and integrates tightly with other Firebase services. Less suited for non-Firebase backends but hard to beat on price and reliability.
WorkOS
The enterprise auth play. Free up to 1M MAU for standard social and email auth, but designed to add SSO, SCIM provisioning, and audit logs when enterprise customers require them. If you plan to sell upmarket, WorkOS grows with you in a way that Clerk or Supabase Auth do not.
Start with Clerk if you are on Next.js. Use Supabase Auth if you are on Supabase. Add WorkOS only when an enterprise customer asks for SSO: do not over-engineer auth before that moment.
See the full comparison: Best alternatives to Auth0 and Best alternatives to Clerk.