Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Clerk Authentication VS SuperTokens

Compare Clerk Authentication VS SuperTokens and see what are their differences

Clerk Authentication logo Clerk Authentication

Clerk is a complete suite of embeddable UIs, flexible APIs, and admin dashboards to authenticate and manage your users.

SuperTokens logo SuperTokens

Open Source User Authentication - An Alternative to Auth0 / Firebase Auth / AWS Cognito
  • Clerk Authentication Clerk Overview
    Clerk Overview //
    2024-06-03
  • Clerk Authentication Clerk Prebuilt UI Components
    Clerk Prebuilt UI Components //
    2024-06-03
  • Clerk Authentication Clerk Sign In & Sign Up Customization
    Clerk Sign In & Sign Up Customization //
    2024-06-03
  • Clerk Authentication Clerk User Button Component
    Clerk User Button Component //
    2024-06-03
  • Clerk Authentication Clerk User Profile Component
    Clerk User Profile Component //
    2024-06-03
  • SuperTokens Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-26

SuperTokens is building open source authentication (as an alternative to Auth0, Firebase and AWS Cognito). Add secure, hassle free authentication to your app in 1 day. We enable startups to launch quicker and focus on their core product offering

  1. We're easier to implement as we take a modular approach - making it possible to pick only the features you need for your use case. This means you need not worry about complications associated with other features (eg: SSO and OAuth if you donโ€™t need it) and this in turn makes it easier to implement and manage SuperTokens.
  2. Developer's can own and manage their user's data.
  3. SuperTokens can be run on your premise for free and also has a generous hosted tier for those who dont want to manage it themselves.

SuperTokens is being used by hundreds of developers across the globe.

Clerk Authentication

Website
clerk.com
$ Details
Release Date
2019 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
CA
Founder(s)
Colin Sidoti, Braden Sidoti
Employees
50 - 99

Clerk Authentication features and specs

  • Multifactor Authentication
    Each user's self-serve multifactor settings are enforced automatically during sign-in.
  • Advanced security
    Clerk is SOC 2 type 2 certified and CCPA compliant. We conduct regular third-party audits and penetration tests.
  • Session Management
    Clerk manages the full session lifecycle, including critical security functionality like active device monitoring and session revocation.
  • Email and SMS one-time passcodes
    Fast and reliable one-time passcode delivery with built-in brute force prevention.
  • Passwords
    Simple and secure password authentication, complete with breach detection and recovery options.
  • Magic Links
    Improve sign-up conversion rates and filter out spam/fraud with Magic Links.
  • Social Sign-On
    Add high-conversion Social Sign-on (SSO) to your application in minutes. 20+ options and growing.
  • Bot Detection
    Dramatically reduce fraudulent sign-ups with built-in, continually updated machine learning.
  • Webhooks
    Gain full control of your application by leveraging Clerk's 20+ webhook events.

SuperTokens features and specs

  • Ease of Integration
    SuperTokens is designed to be developer-friendly, providing easy-to-follow documentation and straightforward integration steps for adding authentication and authorization functionalities to applications.
  • Open Source
    Being open source, SuperTokens allows for transparency, peer reviews, and community-driven improvements, providing an advantage over proprietary solutions.
  • Feature-Rich
    It offers a wide range of features including session management, JWT support, email/password login, social login, and passwordless authentication, catering to various authentication needs.
  • Scalability
    SuperTokens is built to scale, making it suitable for both small applications and large-scale enterprises with significant user bases.
  • Security
    Emphasizes security best practices, providing robust mechanisms for session handling, token storage, and data encryption to ensure user information is safeguarded.

Possible disadvantages of SuperTokens

  • Complexity for Advanced Customization
    While it is easy to integrate, performing advanced customizations may require a deeper understanding of its internal workings, which can be time-consuming.
  • Dependency on Third-Party Infrastructure
    For some setups, SuperTokens may impose dependencies on third-party services or infrastructure, potentially leading to issues related to uptime, latency, and control.
  • Limited Community Support
    As a relatively newer player in the market, it might not have as extensive a community or ecosystem as some older, more established authentication solutions.
  • Data Privacy Concerns
    Although the solution emphasizes security, using any third-party service for authentication introduces some level of concern regarding data privacy, especially if sensitive user data is involved.
  • Initial Learning Curve
    Despite its ease of integration, there is still a learning curve associated with initially understanding how to best implement and use the various features offered by SuperTokens.

Analysis of SuperTokens

Overall verdict

  • SuperTokens is a good choice for developers seeking a customizable and scalable authentication solution. Its open-source nature along with robust security features makes it appealing for projects of various sizes, particularly for those who prefer hands-on integration and configuration.

Why this product is good

  • SuperTokens is an open-source solution that offers simple and secure user authentication, providing features like single sign-on (SSO), session management, and social login. It stands out for its developer-friendly approach, scalable architecture, and open transparency into its codebase, which appeals to organizations that prioritize control and customization in their security stack.

Recommended for

  • Developers and businesses looking for a secure and scalable user authentication solution.
  • Organizations that prioritize customization and control over their security measures.
  • Projects that need to implement social logins or single sign-on capabilities efficiently.
  • Teams that value open-source solutions and community-driven development.

Clerk Authentication videos

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SuperTokens videos

How SuperTokens detects Session Hijacking?

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Clerk Authentication and SuperTokens)
Identity Provider
69 69%
31% 31
Developer Tools
35 35%
65% 65
SSO
100 100%
0% 0
Identity And Access Management

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Clerk Authentication and SuperTokens

Clerk Authentication Reviews

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SuperTokens Reviews

  1. David Ruseel
    ยท Sr. Security Architect at Freelancer ยท
    SuperTokens is reliable and safe

    The best part about this library is the level of security it provides with session management. Implementing the library was also easy through the document they provide and with the extensive support on discord channel. They also provided a lot of features compared to the previous library which I was using.

    ๐Ÿ Competitors: Auth0, Firebase, Amazon Cognito
    ๐Ÿ‘ Pros:    Jwt blacklisting|Rotating jwt signing key|Malware protection|Man in the middle attack protection
    ๐Ÿ‘Ž Cons:    Automatic email alerts for high resource usage
  2. Jacob Riley
    ยท Reverse Engineer, OSCP, OSCE at Freelancer ยท
    SuperTokens! Best app for Session Security

    I used it with MongoDB and Nodejs. It was very robust and took care of all my security issues. It's super easy to implement like it took me somewhere around 2 to 3 days to implement also while installing it doesn't force or restrict you from doing something a certain way. The documentation provided by SuperTokens is phenomenal too.

    ๐Ÿ Competitors: ExpressJS
    ๐Ÿ‘ Pros:    Session security|Session management|Data protection and security|Simple pricing|Super simple|Easy to use|Information is easily accessible
    ๐Ÿ‘Ž Cons:    Not enough intergration yet

12 Best Open-source Database Backend Server and Google Firebase Alternatives
SuberTokens is a self-hosted open-source user authentication backend for startups and companies. It helps developer building a user-based workflow without the complication of complex authentication layer. SuberTokens offers user authentication, tokens management, session management, forget email workflow, email verification, social login support, and easy front-end...
Source: medevel.com

Social recommendations and mentions

SuperTokens might be a bit more popular than Clerk Authentication. We know about 44 links to it since March 2021 and only 41 links to Clerk Authentication. 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.

Clerk Authentication mentions (41)

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SuperTokens mentions (44)

  • Top 5 Open Source Identity and Access Management (IAM) providers 2025
    Home page | GitHub Repo | Documentation | Discord community. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Auth Pricing Wars: Cognito vs Auth0 vs Firebase vs Supabase
    For B2C, Supabase will get you most of the way for small to medium MAU applications. You might need additional services for analytics and monitoring. If you are building a boom-or-bust B2C company (ex. Social media platform, video game, media publication) you should consider using an open-source self-hosted solution like SuperTokens. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • OpenAUTH: Universal, standards-based auth provider
    How does this compare to supertokens https://supertokens.com/ that supports fastify express, hono, bun, koa, nuxt, react, vue, angular with email password + social login + OTP based login + single sign on all wrapped in a self hostable nice package? - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • The Joy of Astro
    My love for Astro and the web platform is well documented. I've contributed to the docs, I've built some integrations and themes. I recently rediscovered the joy of building with Astro when I made a demo integration with SuperTokens. The ultimate goal for it was to become a part of the create-supertokens-app CLI (published here). - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • How to use SuperTokens in a VueJS app with your own UI
    SuperTokens Core Service: This HTTP service talks to your database. It also contains the core logic for authentication. You can self-host with your database (with docker or without Docker or host it with a SuperTokens-managed service. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Clerk Authentication and SuperTokens, you can also consider the following products

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

MonoCloud - The authentication platform that helps you secure your apps with branded login pages and your choice of identity methods. Stop worrying about auth and start building with MonoCloud.

Amazon Cognito - Amazon Cognito lets you add user sign-up, sign-in, and access control to your web and mobile apps quickly and easily. It scales to millions of users and supports sign-in with social identity providers and enterprise identity providers via SAML 2.0.

Okta - Enterprise-grade identity management for all your apps, users & devices

Cotter - One-click phone number login and checkout

Keycloak - Open Source Identity and Access Management for modern Applications and Services.