AI visibility report for Better Auth
Vertical: Agent Authentication & Identity for AI
AI search visibility benchmark across 5 platforms in Agent Authentication & Identity for AI.
Presence Rate
Top-3 citations across 125 prompt × platform pairs
Sentiment
Peer Ranking
Key Metrics
Platform Breakdown
Grok
ChatGPT
Perplexity
Google AI Mode
Gemini SearchOverview
Better Auth is an open-source, framework-agnostic authentication and authorization framework for TypeScript, founded in 2024 by Bereket Engida and KinfeMichael Tariku in San Francisco. It enables developers to implement comprehensive auth—credential login, social sign-on, passkeys, two-factor authentication, multi-tenancy, enterprise SSO, and AI agent authentication—directly in their codebase, with all user data stored in the developer's own database. Since its GitHub launch in September 2024, Better Auth has accumulated 26,000+ GitHub stars, 150,000+ weekly npm downloads, and 6,000+ Discord community members. The company raised a $5M seed round in June 2025 led by Peak XV, with Y Combinator, P1 Ventures, and Chapter One also participating. Monetization flows through optional cloud infrastructure add-ons on a freemium model, while the core framework remains MIT-licensed and free.
Better Auth is an open-source TypeScript authentication framework that lives inside the developer's own codebase and database. It offers a composable, plugin-based system with 50+ auth methods and features—from basic email/password and social login to enterprise SSO/SCIM and AI agent authentication via MCP and the Agent Auth Protocol—competing with managed services like Auth0 and Clerk by offering full data ownership, no MAU-based pricing, and deep flexibility across 20+ JavaScript framework environments.
Key Facts
- Founded
- 2024
- HQ
- San Francisco, USA
- Founders
- Bereket Engida, KinfeMichael Tariku
- Employees
- 1-10
- Funding
- $5M
- Status
- Private (YC S25)
Target users
Key Capabilities10
- Framework-agnostic TypeScript authentication with full end-to-end type safety
- Plugin-based architecture with 50+ official plugins, easily extensible
- Built-in email/password, social sign-on (34+ OAuth providers), passkeys, magic links, OTP, and more
- Multi-tenancy: organizations, roles, invitations, and RBAC out of the box
- Enterprise features: SSO, SAML 2.0, SCIM, directory sync, OIDC provider
- AI agent authentication via MCP auth, token exchange, and Agent Auth Protocol
- Self-hosted with bring-your-own-database (Prisma, Drizzle, and more)
- Security layer: bot detection, brute force protection, impossible travel detection, geo-blocking, disposable email blocking
- Optional cloud infrastructure: dashboard, audit logs with log drain, transactional email/SMS
- Code-first declarative configuration (version-controlled, PR-reviewable, no dashboard clicks)
Key Use Cases7
- Adding comprehensive authentication to TypeScript web apps without vendor lock-in
- Building multi-tenant SaaS products with organizations, roles, and enterprise SSO/SCIM
- AI agent identity and authorization using MCP auth and the Agent Auth Protocol
- Self-hosting auth to keep all user data on-premise for compliance or cost control
- Replacing expensive managed auth services (Auth0, Clerk) to eliminate MAU-based pricing
- Rapidly extending auth with custom or community-built plugins for niche requirements
- Enterprise-grade authentication across diverse JavaScript framework stacks
Recent Trend
How AI describes Better Auth3
...com) | Partial | LangChain / custom agents | Fine-grained workflows and no-code auth | Internal enterprise copilots | | Better Auth | Via xmcp | MCP ecosystem | OSS-first auth model | Self-hosted MCP de...
What tools integrate natively with MCP and the major AI agent frameworks for handling auth in agentic workflows?
...f your agent infra already lives there | | Best OSS/self-hosted route | Ory or Better Auth | More infra work, more control | * * * My recommendation for most M...
I'm an ML engineer building agents — which auth platforms let me focus on agent logic instead of wrestling with OAuth plumbing?
Better Auth That removes a huge amount of boilerplate. \[6\] This is more “framework convenience” than standalone auth infrastructure, but it’s excellent for fast setup.
Which platforms make it easiest to set up secure auth for MCP servers without building custom OAuth flows from scratch?
Most cited sources1
Alternatives in Agent Authentication & Identity for AI6
Better Auth positions itself as the open-source, self-hosted alternative to managed authentication services like Auth0, Clerk, and NextAuth.
- Its core differentiator is a framework-agnostic, TypeScript-first, plugin-based architecture that keeps all user data in the developer's own database—no vendor lock-in, no external data storage, and no MAU-based pricing at scale.
- It competes on developer experience, composability, and data sovereignty while expanding upmarket with enterprise SSO/SCIM and into the AI-native segment via MCP auth and the Agent Auth Protocol.
Reviews
Praised
- Framework-agnostic (Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Astro, Vue, Svelte, and more)
- Excellent TypeScript developer experience and end-to-end type safety
- Plugin-based composability — include only what you need
- Self-hosted with full data ownership and no vendor lock-in
- Comprehensive built-in features (2FA, passkeys, organizations, SSO)
- Code-first, version-controlled auth configuration
- Free and open source with active and growing community
- Fast-moving project with frequent updates and strong community momentum
Criticized
- Relatively new library — edge-case bugs possible in production
- Requires TypeScript proficiency and more initial setup than managed services
- No pre-built auth UI components (headless only)
- Community-only support by default; commercial SLA requires Enterprise plan
- Smaller ecosystem and fewer third-party tutorials compared to Auth0 or Clerk
Developer community sentiment toward Better Auth is strongly positive among TypeScript developers. It is frequently described as a 'spiritual successor' to NextAuth that resolves longstanding gaps in the open-source auth ecosystem. LogRocket noted that 'almost every developer who tries it is instantly sold on the experience,' and DevToolsAcademy found it hard not to recommend for new TypeScript projects given its DX and completeness. Community sources highlight broad framework support, composable plugins, and data ownership as standout advantages. Criticism centers on its youth (edge-case bug risk), lack of pre-built UI components, and community-only support as the default tier.
Pricing
The Better Auth framework is free and open source (MIT license). Optional cloud infrastructure: Starter (free) includes user management, 1 dashboard seat, 1-day audit log retention, and 10k audit log events/month. Pro ($20/month) adds unlimited seats, 20k audit logs/month with 7-day retention, security detection (10k events/month), transactional email and SMS, and email templates with abuse protection. Additional audit log events billed at $0.0001/event and additional security detection at $0.001/event on Pro. Enterprise pricing is custom and adds self-service SSO, log drain to SIEM, custom domain, dashboard RBAC, advanced support, and custom volume limits.
Limitations
- Better Auth launched publicly in September 2024 and is still maturing; fast-moving releases may introduce edge-case bugs in production.
- Community support is the default channel with no commercial SLA unless on the Enterprise plan.
- The framework is headless—there are no pre-built auth UI components, requiring more frontend coding compared to managed services like Clerk.
- Requires TypeScript proficiency and greater initial setup effort.
- Mobile SDK support is less developed than web framework adapters.
- As a small team (founder-led through mid-2025), response times for issues and enterprise onboarding may lag larger vendors.
Frequently asked questions
Topic Coverage
Prompt-Level Results
| Prompt | ChatGPT | Grok | Perplexity | Google AI Mode | Gemini Search |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Capability0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What tools let me enforce fine-grained, intent-based access policies for AI agents accessing enterprise systems? | |||||
Looking for an agent auth solution that supports agent-to-agent delegation and MCP server authentication — what should I evaluate? | |||||
Which non-human identity platforms can govern AI agents alongside service accounts, API keys, and machine identities? | |||||
What tools handle both human user auth and AI agent identity under a single platform with granular per-agent permissions? | |||||
Which platforms support ephemeral, task-scoped credentials for AI agents instead of static API keys? | |||||
Developer Experience1/5 cited (20%) | |||||
Which platforms offer the smoothest workflow for testing and debugging agent auth flows during development? | |||||
What tools do AI agent developers actually use day-to-day for handling user-delegated authentication across multiple integrations? | |||||
I'm an ML engineer building agents — which auth platforms let me focus on agent logic instead of wrestling with OAuth plumbing? | |||||
Which agent auth platforms have the best developer experience for managing OAuth tokens, refresh flows, and scoped permissions? | |||||
What agent identity tools have the best docs and SDKs for a small team building their first production AI agent? | |||||
Integrations & Ecosystem0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What tools integrate natively with MCP and the major AI agent frameworks for handling auth in agentic workflows? | |||||
Looking for agent identity infrastructure that plugs into our existing identity provider — which platforms support federation? | |||||
Which agent auth platforms have the widest coverage of pre-built OAuth connectors for popular SaaS APIs? | |||||
Which platforms let AI agents securely access both cloud SaaS tools and on-prem internal systems through one auth layer? | |||||
I'm evaluating agent auth tools for a multi-cloud setup — which ones support cross-environment policy enforcement and audit trails? | |||||
Performance & Reliability0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
I need agent auth that works at the edge with sub-100ms enforcement — which platforms support distributed authorization? | |||||
What auth infrastructure holds up when thousands of AI agents are making concurrent authenticated API calls? | |||||
What are the most battle-tested platforms for securing AI agents in regulated industries like fintech or healthcare? | |||||
Which agent auth platforms add the least latency overhead to tool calls when agents need to authenticate in real time? | |||||
Which platforms handle automatic token refresh and rotation reliably enough for production AI agent workloads? | |||||
Setup & First Run0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What tools let me add delegated auth to AI agents without requiring each end user to re-authenticate for every tool call? | |||||
What's the quickest way to add OAuth authentication to AI agents that need to access third-party APIs on behalf of users? | |||||
Looking for a drop-in SDK to handle agent-to-API authentication in a TypeScript codebase — what are my options? | |||||
I'm building an AI agent that needs to connect to a dozen SaaS tools securely — what auth infrastructure should I start with? | |||||
Which platforms make it easiest to set up secure auth for MCP servers without building custom OAuth flows from scratch? | |||||
Strengths
No clear strengths identified yet.
Gaps5
I'm an ML engineer building agents — which auth platforms let me focus on agent logic instead of wrestling with OAuth plumbing?
Competitors on 5 platforms
Which platforms offer the smoothest workflow for testing and debugging agent auth flows during development?
Competitors on 4 platforms
What's the quickest way to add OAuth authentication to AI agents that need to access third-party APIs on behalf of users?
Competitors on 4 platforms
Which agent auth platforms have the best developer experience for managing OAuth tokens, refresh flows, and scoped permissions?
Competitors on 4 platforms
Which platforms handle automatic token refresh and rotation reliably enough for production AI agent workloads?
Competitors on 4 platforms
Vertical Ranking
| # | Brand | PresencePres. | Share of VoiceSoV | DocsDocs | BlogBlog | MentionsMent. | Avg PosPos | Sentiment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Auth0 (Okta) | 38.4% | 21.8% | 4.8% | 20.8% | 32.0% | #15.5 | +0.38 |
| 2 | WorkOS | 35.2% | 16.2% | 0.8% | 34.4% | 31.2% | #14.4 | +0.39 |
| 3 | Composio | 31.2% | 21.4% | 1.6% | 2.4% | 28.0% | #24.2 | +0.46 |
| 4 | Nango | 30.4% | 14.1% | 0.0% | 29.6% | 27.2% | #14.5 | +0.41 |
| 5 | Merge | 22.4% | 7.7% | 0.8% | 20.8% | 20.8% | #14.6 | +0.39 |
| 6 | Stytch | 20.8% | 9.4% | 3.2% | 18.4% | 19.2% | #13.8 | +0.36 |
| 7 | Arcade.dev | 8.0% | 4.2% | 0.8% | 7.2% | 8.0% | #36.7 | +0.43 |
| 8 | Descope | 7.2% | 2.8% | 0.0% | 3.2% | 7.2% | #14.3 | +0.39 |
| 9 | Astrix Security | 3.2% | 1.2% | 0.0% | 2.4% | 3.2% | #11.4 | +0.50 |
| 10 | Oasis Security | 2.4% | 0.9% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.4% | #11.5 | +0.67 |
| 11 | Better Auth | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.8% | #29.0 | +0.80 |
| 12 | Keycard.ai | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | — | — |
| 13 | Operant AI | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | — | — |
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