Many projects start out happily on Auth0’s free tier (up to ~7,000 MAUs), but the jump to the paid Basic plan—\$525/month for 7.5K active users—can sting fast. Beyond raw cost, teams worry about unpredictable bills, feature lock-ins, and vendor dependence.
Top Community-Recommended Alternatives
Cloud-Provider Auth Services
- AWS Cognito, Azure B2C, Google Identity Platform
- Virtually free until very high volumes, but may lack out-of-the-box UI customization.
Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS)
- Firebase Auth (free up to 50K users/month)
- Supabase Auth
- PocketBase (self-hosted)
- SSOJet, Clerk.dev, Stytch, Kinde
- All offer generous free tiers and modern SDKs
Self-Hosted Open-Source
- Keycloak, Ory Kratos, Supertokens, Authgear
- Full control and zero license fees, at the cost of hosting and maintenance overhead.
Build-Your-Own
- Roll your own JWT-based login (e.g., using Passport.js or a simple email/password flow)
- Simplest for very small scale but requires ongoing security diligence.
Key Considerations Before You Switch
- Scale & Budget: Calculate total cost at your expected growth, not just free-tier limits.
- Feature Requirements: Do you need MFA, SSO/SAML, social logins, or multi-tenant support?
- Maintenance Overhead: Self-hosting shifts burden to your team; hosted solutions offload ops at a price.
- Vendor Lock-In: Check data export and migration paths—some providers don’t let you export password hashes.
- Community & Support: A vibrant open-source community (Keycloak, Ory) or strong commercial SLAs (SSOJet, Clerk, Stytch) can save you headaches down the road.
By weighing cost, complexity, and required features, you can pick a path that fits both your technical needs and your wallet—whether that’s a serverless BaaS, a self-hosted IAM, or even a custom-built solution.
Ref:
https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/17s0c6c/is_there_a_auth0_alternative_that_is_cost/
"Is there a auth0 alternative that is Cost effective ? : r/node"
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