BastionAuth vs Clerk

Both BastionAuth and Clerk aim to provide excellent developer experience for authentication. Here's how they compare.

TL;DR

Choose BastionAuth if you need data sovereignty, have compliance requirements (HIPAA, FedRAMP), or want to avoid per-user pricing at scale.

Choose Clerk if you want the fastest possible setup and don't need self-hosting.

Feature Comparison

Pricing Comparison

Clerk Pricing (as of 2024)

• Free: 10,000 MAU
• Pro: $25/month + $0.02/MAU after 10K
• Enterprise: Custom

BastionAuth Pricing

• Self-hosted: Free forever (open source)
• Pro: $299/month (includes SAML SSO)
• Business: $899/month (includes SCIM, SLA)
• Enterprise: Custom (includes compliance support)

Cost at Scale

Self-hosted costs are infrastructure only (database, Redis, compute)

Key Differences

1. Data Sovereignty

Clerk: Your authentication data is stored on Clerk's infrastructure. They're SOC 2 compliant, but you don't control where data resides.

BastionAuth: Self-hosted means your data stays in your infrastructure. Critical for HIPAA, FedRAMP, and data residency requirements.

2. Pricing Model

Clerk: Per-MAU pricing means costs scale linearly with users. Great for small apps, expensive at scale.

BastionAuth: Self-hosted is free. Managed/support tiers are flat-rate, not per-user. Predictable costs.

3. Vendor Lock-in

Clerk: Proprietary system. Migration requires rebuilding auth flows.

BastionAuth: Open-source core. Standard JWT tokens. Migration tools available.

4. OAuth Providers

Clerk: 20+ built-in providers with excellent setup experience.

BastionAuth: 5 major providers (Google, GitHub, Microsoft, Apple, LinkedIn). Custom OAuth support planned.

SDK Comparison

Both offer similar React/Next.js APIs:

Provider Setup

// Clerk
import { ClerkProvider } from '@clerk/nextjs';
<ClerkProvider>{children}</ClerkProvider>
 
// BastionAuth
import { BastionProvider } from '@bastionauth/react';
<BastionProvider publishableKey="...">{children}</BastionProvider>

Authentication Hook

// Clerk
import { useAuth } from '@clerk/nextjs';
const { isSignedIn, userId, signOut } = useAuth();
 
// BastionAuth
import { useAuth } from '@bastionauth/react';
const { isSignedIn, userId, signOut } = useAuth();

Middleware

// Clerk
import { authMiddleware } from '@clerk/nextjs';
export default authMiddleware({ publicRoutes: ['/'] });
 
// BastionAuth
import { authMiddleware } from '@bastionauth/nextjs';
export default authMiddleware({ publicRoutes: ['/'] });

Migration from Clerk

BastionAuth provides migration tools:

# Export users from Clerk
npx @bastionauth/cli migrate clerk --export
 
# Import to BastionAuth
npx @bastionauth/cli migrate clerk --import

User passwords cannot be migrated (security). Users will need to reset passwords or use magic links.

When to Choose Clerk

• You want zero infrastructure management
• You need 20+ OAuth providers out of the box
• You're okay with per-MAU pricing
• You don't have data sovereignty requirements
• You want the absolute fastest setup

When to Choose BastionAuth

• You have HIPAA, FedRAMP, or data residency requirements
• You want to control where authentication data lives
• You're cost-sensitive at scale (100K+ users)
• You prefer open-source solutions
• You want to avoid vendor lock-in