home / rankings / auth providers / ory alternatives Ory alternatives 13 tools we tested head to head against Ory, ranked — and what each one actually does differently.
last reviewed 17 aug 2026 · from our best 14 auth and identity providers · list curated by Onur Ozcan x in
first — what you'd be leaving Ory ranks #13 of 14 in our auth providers testing. apache 2.0 components, billed hosted in a unit nobody else uses.
58 /100 genuinely permissive components underneath a hosted product priced in a unit that cannot be compared with anything else here.
why people look for an alternative
− bills per average daily active user with no published mau conversion − saml sso and scim are enterprise-only at custom pricing − b2b organisations capped at three even on the $9,350/year plan stay with Ory if kratos and hydra are apache 2.0 with no licence key required is the thing you care about most — nothing below beats it on that.
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1
Clerk #1 in auth providers · $25 a month at fifty thousand users, with one sso connection included
90 /100 verdict the cheapest credible option at mid-scale by a wide margin, priced per application rather than per account.
Clerk vs Ory
Ory Clerk price $770/year (production) $25/mo (pro) free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau $25/mo sso connection enterprise only — custom 1 included, then $75/mo self-host yes — apache 2.0 no scim enterprise tier only not published
switch for product teams who want the drop-in components and will not hit enterprise procurement for a while
pros
+ $25/mo at 50,000 users — the cheapest credible option at that scale + one enterprise sso connection included in the entry paid plan + generous hobby tier at the same 50,000 user ceiling + organisations included at 100 monthly active orgs before charges start + drop-in ui components that cut integration to hours cons
− priced per application, so multi-product companies pay repeatedly − logs retained 30 days even on the business tier − bills monthly retained users, a different unit from everyone else here 2
WorkOS #2 in auth providers · free authentication to a million users, billed at the enterprise connection
88 /100 verdict free auth at any startup scale with enterprise features sold as clean line items — which become the entire bill as you land enterprise customers.
WorkOS vs Ory
Ory WorkOS price $770/year (production) $125/connection/mo free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau $0 — free to 1m sso connection enterprise only — custom $125/mo each self-host yes — apache 2.0 no scim enterprise tier only $125/mo per connection
switch for b2b saas selling to enterprises, where sso is a deal requirement rather than a feature
pros
+ authentication free to 1m monthly active users + admin portal lets customers self-configure their idp + sso and directory sync priced as clear per-connection line items + connection pricing tiers down substantially at volume + purpose-built for b2b rather than retrofitted from consumer auth cons
− $125 per sso connection is the highest here, and scim is billed again − thirty enterprise customers on both costs roughly $6,000/mo − audit logs bill per streaming connection plus per million events 3
Keycloak #3 in auth providers · the only one with no commercial layer anywhere
85 /100 verdict every feature enterprises pay for elsewhere sits in the same apache 2.0 tree, with the entire operational burden as the price.
Keycloak vs Ory
Ory Keycloak price $770/year (production) free — self-host only free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau $0 — infrastructure only sso connection enterprise only — custom included — no per-connection fee self-host yes — apache 2.0 yes — apache 2.0 scim enterprise tier only preview, disabled by default
switch for teams with operations capacity who want no vendor in the identity path at all
pros
+ apache 2.0 with no commercial layer of any kind + saml, organizations and fine-grained admin permissions all in the oss build + no metering — cost is flat regardless of user count + organization support now enabled by default for b2b multi-tenancy + no vendor in the authentication path for your product cons
− scim is a preview feature, disabled by default − no first-party hosted tier — you run and patch all of it − operational burden is the real price and it is not small advertisement
4
Supabase Auth #4 in auth providers · auth bundled with the database you were already paying for
82 /100 verdict effectively free auth if you are already paying for the database, under a real mit licence — thin exactly where b2b requirements start.
Supabase Auth vs Ory
Ory Supabase Auth price $770/year (production) $25/mo (pro plan) free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau $25/mo (pro plan) sso connection enterprise only — custom 50 free, then $0.015/mau self-host yes — apache 2.0 yes — mit scim enterprise tier only not documented
switch for teams already on supabase who need solid consumer auth and little b2b machinery
pros
+ $25/mo covers auth plus the database, storage and functions + mit licence on the auth server, verified from the licence file + 50,000 mau free, 100,000 included on pro + saml 2.0 enterprise sso metered per user rather than per connection + mfa via totp or phone documented cons
− no documented scim provisioning − no end-user organisations or multi-tenancy model − auth audit logs not documented — treat as absent 5
Better Auth #5 in auth providers · a plain mit framework with no metering at any scale
80 /100 verdict the only entry here where the code carries no commercial layer at all — and the only one you must operate entirely yourself.
Better Auth vs Ory
Ory Better Auth price $770/year (production) free — the framework is not metered free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau n/a — not metered sso connection enterprise only — custom 1 on $20 tier, then $50/mo self-host yes — apache 2.0 yes — mit scim enterprise tier only via paid hosted service
switch for typescript teams who want auth in their own codebase with no per-user bill ever
pros
+ mit licence with no commercial restriction on the code + no per-user metering at any scale + auth lives in your codebase, on your database + optional hosted tier is priced per event, so $20 holds at any user count + the common destination for teams migrating off per-mau pricing cons
− audit logs, sso management and directory sync require the paid hosted service − a library you operate — no vendor support path − organisations and multi-tenancy in the framework unconfirmed 6
Logto #6 in auth providers · fifty thousand users free, then metered on tokens rather than people
78 /100 verdict the most generous published free tier here on a fully mpl-2.0 codebase, with a metering unit that quietly changes above it.
Logto vs Ory
Ory Logto price $770/year (production) $24/mo (pro) free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau $0 — at the free ceiling sso connection enterprise only — custom $48 per connector self-host yes — apache 2.0 yes — mpl-2.0 scim enterprise tier only not published
switch for small teams who want an open licence and a free tier that actually reaches production
pros
+ 50,000 mau free — the most generous published free tier here + mpl-2.0 across the codebase with no open-core split found + $24 base is the cheapest paid entry of the open-source options + only access tokens count toward the quota, not id or refresh tokens + enterprise sso connectors at $48, well below workos cons
− paid tier meters tokens rather than users, changing how you forecast − organizations, sso and m2m are separate add-ons stacked on the base − scim and audit logs not listed on the pricing page 7
Descope #7 in auth providers · tenants, scim and audit logs in the free tier
75 /100 verdict the most complete b2b feature set at the bottom of the range, sold with an overage rate you cannot find.
Descope vs Ory
Ory Descope price $770/year (production) $249/mo (pro) free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau ≥$799 + unpublished rate sso connection enterprise only — custom 3 free, 5 pro, 10 growth self-host yes — apache 2.0 no scim enterprise tier only included on all tiers
switch for b2b products that need multi-tenancy and provisioning on day one
pros
+ scim provisioning included on every tier, including free + tenants and multi-tenancy on all plans from free upward + audit logs on every tier with retention as the only difference + three enterprise sso connections on the free plan + flows-based configuration rather than code-first integration cons
− no per-mau overage rate published — cost above 25,000 users is unknowable − closed source with no self-hosting option − $249 entry price is high relative to what it includes 8
Kinde #8 in auth providers · unlimited enterprise sso for less than one connection costs elsewhere
73 /100 verdict the cheapest enterprise sso in this ranking by a wide margin, held back by provisioning that has not shipped.
Kinde vs Ory
Ory Kinde price $770/year (production) $25/mo (pro) free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau $716.25/mo (pro) sso connection enterprise only — custom unlimited at $75/mo (plus) self-host yes — apache 2.0 no scim enterprise tier only coming soon — not shipped
switch for b2b teams landing many enterprise customers who each want their own idp
pros
+ unlimited enterprise sso connections at $75/mo on plus + users on paid subscriptions are excluded from the mau count + fifty organisations included on every paid plan + 10,500 mau included even on the $25 entry tier + per-user rates decline across plans for high-volume products cons
− scim is 'coming soon' on every plan, blocking enterprise procurement − $716/mo at 50,000 users is mid-table and well above clerk − audit log retention is one day on the free plan 9
Firebase Authentication #9 in auth providers · free to fifty thousand users, on two price lists at once
70 /100 verdict the cheapest route to fifty thousand consumer users, wearing two price lists whose enterprise half we could not read.
Firebase Authentication vs Ory
Ory Firebase Authentication price $770/year (production) $0 up to 50,000 mau free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau $0 — standard tier sso connection enterprise only — custom unverified — priced per mau self-host yes — apache 2.0 no scim enterprise tier only not documented
switch for consumer mobile and web apps already inside the firebase ecosystem
pros
+ 50,000 mau free on both spark and blaze + deep integration with the rest of firebase and google cloud + handles consumer identifiers — email, social, phone — out of the box + no separate vendor if you are already on firebase + the free tier is genuinely usable in production for consumer apps cons
− one service on two price lists with different rates above the free tier − identity platform pricing tables would not render — enterprise rates unverified − enterprise saml and oidc users bill outside the free allowance 10
SuperTokens #10 in auth providers · unlimited self-hosted users, with the b2b features licensed separately
68 /100 verdict an unlimited-user open-source core with the open-core line running straight through the features b2b products need.
SuperTokens vs Ory
Ory SuperTokens price $770/year (production) $0.02 per mau above 5,000, $100/mo minimum free tier yes yes cost at 50k mau not comparable — bills per adau $900 cloud / $0 self-host sso connection enterprise only — custom on request — enterprise licence self-host yes — apache 2.0 yes — apache 2.0 except ee/ scim enterprise tier only not published
switch for teams who want unmetered self-hosted auth and do not need multi-tenancy
pros
+ self-hosted core has no mau limit — 50,000 users costs nothing + apache 2.0 over everything outside the ee/ directory + enterprise licence explicitly permits unlicensed dev and test use + volume discounts published above 10,000 mau or five organisations + first three dashboard users included cons
− multi-tenancy, m2m and attack protection are priced on request only − mfa and account linking bill per mau even when self-hosted − $100/mo minimum applies per add-on, stacking fast + 3 more tested, not detailed here
we ranked 14 auth providers in total. the 3 that didn't make this page are written up in the full ranking →
how these were compared every tool on this page went through the same test as Ory — same tasks, same order, scored the same way. the comparison tables are the figures from that testing, not vendor spec sheets.
the auth providers test in full → was this useful?
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Clerk alternatives WorkOS alternatives Keycloak alternatives Supabase Auth alternatives Better Auth alternatives Logto alternatives