alt Hacker NewsI'm not sold on Better Auth.
Recently I wanted to add auth to my pet project, and between (a) using better-auth, then integrating 3rd party mailer service, and rolling out my main dashboard (b) leeching off free tier of Auth0 or Clerk and getting all batteries included I've chose the latter.
The fact that better-auth doesn't come with barebone dashboard is criminal.
For pet project it doesn't matter if I have to integrate Resend or Clerk, it's still some mental overhead I have to account for, but with Clerk at least I don't have to manage my users using sql queries.
People say it's better because you can embed it in your app. I don't buy that either. If I'd have to rollout better-auth I'd do that as a separate app, just to encapsulate database, dashboard, and integrations.
Anyway, glad it's getting traction, I just don't get all the hype around it.
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For production systems that need to scale and evolve over time, you’ll regret tightly coupling to Auth0 or Cognito. Don’t misunderstand me—the hosted versions of these services work well, and their hardened, managed interfaces make security testing straightforward. However, the moment you need even minor customization beyond their standard offerings, you’ll find yourself in a frustrating situation.
If Better Auth came with a simple builtin email implementation (i.e. just plug in SMTP credentials), I’d consider it perfect. (I’m not sold on Resend!)
Agreed that a builtin dashboard would be nice, but it’s not necessary by any means – you’ll still be building your own dashboard around your ORM models, which is of course what Better Auth uses, too.
But if you’re looking for something more like Clerk, maybe try Logto or Authentik?
Comparing Better-Auth to Clerk or Auth0 misses the point entirely.
People choose Better-Auth because they want to own their user auth and users table themselves. Auth can be complex, but it's such a key and important piece of your business that outsourcing it to a 3rd party should be much closer to a last resort than a first impulse. If that 3rd party ever shuts down, has downtime, or your account gets suspended for whatever reason, users won't even be able to login to your app. That is a HUGE risk that I am not sure you are accounting for.
> is criminal
No, it isn’t. Take a breath.