Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Auth.js VS Pusher

Compare Auth.js VS Pusher and see what are their differences

Auth.js logo Auth.js

Authentication for the Web.

Pusher logo Pusher

Pusher is a hosted API for quickly, easily and securely adding scalable realtime functionality via WebSockets to web and mobile apps.
  • Auth.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-05-30
  • Pusher Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05

Auth.js features and specs

  • Ease of Integration
    Auth.js is designed to be easily integrable into modern web applications, allowing developers to quickly add authentication features without significant overhead.
  • Extensive Provider Support
    The library supports a wide range of authentication providers and strategies, making it flexible for various use cases.
  • Open Source
    Being open source, Auth.js allows developers to inspect, contribute to, and customize the code to suit their needs.
  • Community and Documentation
    Auth.js has a supportive community and well-maintained documentation, which can help developers troubleshoot issues and learn to use the library effectively.
  • Security Best Practices
    The library follows modern security best practices, ensuring that authentication processes are protected against common vulnerabilities.

Possible disadvantages of Auth.js

  • Dependency Management
    Relying on third-party libraries like Auth.js can introduce dependency management challenges, especially with updates and security patches.
  • Abstraction Complexity
    While the abstraction provided by Auth.js simplifies implementation, it may reduce the flexibility for developers who need low-level access to customize authentication processes deeply.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers unfamiliar with authentication concepts or modern JavaScript frameworks, there may be a learning curve to effectively utilize Auth.js.
  • Performance Overhead
    Integrating an additional library like Auth.js may introduce some performance overhead, which could be a concern for applications with stringent performance requirements.
  • Limited Offline Support
    Auth.js is primarily designed for online authentication flows, which may not be ideal for applications requiring robust offline support.

Pusher features and specs

  • Real-Time Capabilities
    Pusher offers real-time data transfer, enabling instant updates and live feeds without the need for page refreshes. Its WebSockets-based architecture ensures low latency communication.
  • Ease of Use
    The API is straightforward to integrate, with comprehensive documentation and SDKs for various programming languages and platforms, making implementation quick and painless.
  • Scalability
    Pusher can handle a large number of concurrent connections, making it suitable for applications that need to scale seamlessly as user demand grows.
  • Security
    Pusher provides built-in authentication and authorization options, ensuring that data is secure and accessible only to authorized users.
  • Managed Service
    As a managed service, it eliminates the need for maintaining the infrastructure for real-time functionality, freeing up resources and reducing operational complexity.

Possible disadvantages of Pusher

  • Cost
    Pusher can become expensive, especially for applications with high traffic or requiring a large number of concurrent connections, making it less suitable for startups or small-scale projects on a tight budget.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Relying heavily on Pusher's services can lead to vendor lock-in, making it challenging to migrate to another service or in-house solution in the future.
  • Limited Offline Functionality
    Pusher is designed for real-time online communication, and it does not inherently support offline capabilities, which can be a limitation for applications that need to function without a constant internet connection.
  • Complexity for Advanced Use Cases
    While it's easy to set up for basic use cases, implementing more complex scenarios may require additional configuration and a deeper understanding of the architecture.
  • Latency
    Even though Pusher boasts low-latency communication, network conditions and geographical distances can still introduce lag, which might not be acceptable for ultra-low-latency requirements like high-frequency trading.

Analysis of Pusher

Overall verdict

  • Pusher is a solid choice for real-time communication needs. Its ease of integration, wide range of supported platforms, and reliable performance make it a good fit for many applications. However, like any third-party service, it's important to consider factors such as cost, specific requirements, and potential vendor lock-in.

Why this product is good

  • Pusher is a popular service for adding real-time functionality to applications. It offers robust APIs that make it easier to implement features such as notifications, live updates, and real-time chat functionality. Pusher's service is known for its reliability, ease of use, and scalability, making it a strong choice for developers who need to integrate real-time capabilities without building infrastructure from scratch.

Recommended for

  • Developers building real-time chat applications
  • Teams needing live updating features
  • Projects requiring scalable and reliable real-time communication
  • Developers looking for a quick-to-implement solution for notifications and updates

Auth.js videos

Clerk vs Next-Auth.js | It's not that simple...

Pusher videos

Mark Kermode reviews Pusher

More videos:

  • Review - Pusher (1996) - Movie Review
  • Review - Film Recommendations: The Pusher Trilogy

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Auth.js and Pusher)
Developer Tools
19 19%
81% 81
Mobile Push Messaging
0 0%
100% 100
Authentication
100 100%
0% 0
Identity Provider
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Auth.js and Pusher

Auth.js Reviews

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Pusher Reviews

SignalR Alternatives
Pusher as a signal Alternative comes into the picture when it is simple and has free plans for the fallback of SSE to make the frame and log polling also available to the developers for troubleshooting as well.
Source: www.educba.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Pusher should be more popular than Auth.js. It has been mentiond 56 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Auth.js mentions (27)

  • Top 5 Open Source Identity and Access Management (IAM) providers 2025
    Home page | GitHub Repo | Documentation | Discord community. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Next.js and Next-Auth V5: Guide to Social Logins(OAuth)
    Auth.js is an open-source authentication library that integrates with modern JavaScript frameworks like Next.js, Svelte, and Express. Previously the project was available only for Next.js and thus it used to be called Next-Auth. Today, a portion of Auth.js is still supports Next-Auth, but along with it, there are SvelteKitAuth, and ExpressAuth available too. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Real-Time Authorization in a Chat Application with Permit.io and WebSockets
    Weโ€™ll be using Auth.js, an authentication library originally built for Next.js. Run the following command to install the package:. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Simple Next.js Magic Link JWT Authentication with Prisma, PostgreSQL, and Resend
    When building web applications, authentication is almost always a core requirement. I needed something simple and secure that would let me get started quickly on new projects without over-complicating the setup. My goal was to have a solution that's easy to implement, handles email verification out of the box, and just works. In this post, I'm sharing how to build a straightforward magic link authentication system... - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Building a Personal Finance App with Arcjet
    This article will serve as a guide on how to create a simple finance management app using Arcjet, Next.js, Auth.js, Prisma, SQLite, and Tailwind CSS. Building a personal finance management app with modern web development skills, practical functionality, and robust security helps drive home the point of how effective it can be to incorporate these features. Our application will be proof of concept, so there will be... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
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Pusher mentions (56)

  • Real-Time Sync Alternatives: Vaultrice vs. localStorage, DIY, Firebase, Pusher
    Services like Pusher and Ably are experts in real-time messaging. They provide robust APIs for pub/sub channels, allowing you to broadcast events to clients reliably. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • 5 Must-Watch Tutorials to Build Your SaaS App in 2025
    In this tutorial, youโ€™ll create a Next.js project with TailwindCSS and build custom authentication pages for Clerk without the watermark. This means youโ€™ll create a custom Clerk authentication component, allowing you to have a UI without the Clerk branding in the authentication component. Youโ€™ll then set up file uploads using Uploadcare and create custom theming with Shadcn UI for light and dark modes. A real-time... - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • PubNub vs Pusher creating a realtime messaging app in React
    When talking about general IM applications, having the ability to speak to someone in real-time opens up the door to so many unique possibilities. Our world has become ever more connected as a result of these newfound capabilities. In todays article we will learn all about messaging as we build a real-time messaging application. The application will be able to connect to two different real-time application... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • 10 Must-Use APIs for Your Next SaaS Project
    For real-time notifications, Pusherโ€™s APIs allow you to implement in-app notifications, chat features, and collaboration tools easily. You can find it here. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • How to Build a Real-time Chat App with Laravel, Vue.js, and Pusher
    Pusher is a cloud-hosted service that makes adding real-time functionality to applications easy. It acts as a real-time communication layer between servers and clients. This allows your backend server to instantly broadcast new data via Pusher to your Vue.js client. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Auth.js and Pusher, you can also consider the following products

Next.js - A small framework for server-rendered universal JavaScript apps

Firebase - Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications for mobile and web.

Auth0 - Auth0 is a program for people to get authentication and authorization services for their own business use.

PubNub - PubNub is a real-time messaging system for web and mobile apps that can handle API for all platforms and push messages to any device anywhere in the world in a fraction of a second without having to worry about proxies, firewalls or mobile drop-offs.

Supabase - An open source Firebase alternative

Socket.io - Realtime application framework (Node.JS server)