5 best Auth0 alternatives in 2024: head-to-head

Auth0 is a widely used authentication solution that simplifies the integration of user management features into applications. Yet, it isn't a one-size-fits-all solution — some businesses struggle with its cost, customization limitations, and the level of support offered.

If Auth0 doesn’t quite meet your app’s needs, don’t worry! Alternatives like WorkOS, AWS Cognito, Keycloak, Frontegg, and Firebase each offer unique features and pricing structures that may be a better fit.

In this article, we will compare the top Auth0 alternatives in detail, examining their key features, cost-effectiveness, and best suitability for specific scenarios to help you make a more informed decision.

Why should you consider an Auth0 alternative?

Here are a few reasons why you might want to explore Auth0 alternatives:

Can be costly

Auth0's pricing can quickly become costly, especially for larger organizations or those with high authentication volumes. 

Specifically, there have been changes, such as the Essentials plan's price adjustment from $23 to $35 per month for 500 Monthly Active Users (MAUs) in B2C scenarios. B2B pricing also increased, with the Essentials plan moving from $130 to $150 monthly for the same number of MAUs​. 

Their pricing model often requires expensive enterprise plans to unlock features such as SAML and Azure AD integration. 

The costs can start to add up when you factor in additional features and services not included in the core plans.

Limited customization and flexibility

Auth0 offers solid out-of-the-box features, but customizing authentication flows or integrating with proprietary systems can be challenging. 

It does offer Actions, which are custom scripts you can trigger during the authentication pipeline, but even then, the level of customization is limited. If you have unique requirements, you may find yourself constrained.

Limited customer support

Some users have reported less-than-stellar customer support experiences with Auth0. Having reliable support is crucial when dealing with a critical part of your infrastructure, like authentication.

Top Auth0 alternatives in 2024

1. WorkOS
2. AWS Cognito
3. Keycloak
4. Frontegg
5. Firebase

1. WorkOS

WorkOS is an all-in-one developer-friendly platform that offers a suite of features for adding enterprise identity management to your apps. 

Key features

• Easy integration: Simple integration with your app via SDKs and APIs for most programming languages.
• Enterprise SSO: Support SSO integration for any SAML or OIDC-compliant identity provider.
• Admin portal: A customizable dashboard your customers can use to onboard themselves. Send them an invite, and WorkOS will instruct them on configuring their SSO or SCIM integration.
• User management: It supports all popular authentication methods, including email/password authentication, social logins, multi-factor authentication, magic auth, and SSO. It also supports identity linking, email verification, and role-based access control.
• AuthKit: This is a customizable hosted UI that you can use to easily add all the authentication options WorkOS provides to your app. It handles your authentication logic, including SSO redirects, password resets, and email verification.
• Flexible integration: If you’d rather not use the hosted UI (AuthKit), you can call the WorkOS APIs directly from your app and build your own front end.
• Audit logs: WorkOS records all the actions taken by your app users. These logs contain the action taken, the user who took it, what was affected, and when and where it occurred.

Pricing

• User management: Free for up to 1 million MAUs, and every additional million MAUs at $2500/month.
• Custom domains: Offered separately for a flat rate of $99/mo.
• Single Sign-On: $125 per connection/month.
• Directory Sync: $125 per connection/month.
• Audit logs: Starts at $5 per organization/month.

Best for

Enterprise applications that need cost-effective enterprise-grade identity management features like SCIM or SSO.

2. AWS Cognito

Cognito is Amazon's fully managed identity service for web and mobile apps.

Key features

• User pools: Cognito provides user pools that act as a complete user directory, supporting sign-in and sign-up capabilities.
• Identity pools allow you to assign AWS credentials to users so they can access other AWS services directly or through your API.
• Identity federation: Cognito supports logging in through social identity providers like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, as well as enterprise identity providers through SAML and OIDC. 
• Cognito sync: Cognito Sync allows storing user profile data in datasets synchronized across multiple devices and platforms. It can also push updates to all devices associated with a user's identity as changes occur, which helps reduce latency and improve the application's real-time feel.

Pricing

AWS Cognito has a free tier includes 50,000 monthly active users and 625,000 monthly user data synchronizations. Beyond that, it uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model based on your monthly active users and data synchronizations.

Best for

AWS Cognito’s serverless architecture and tight AWS integration make it a great fit for AWS-based applications. However, it may not be the best option for non-AWS apps.

3. Keycloak

Keycloak is an open-source identity and access management solution with robust authentication, user management, and authorization features. It's a compelling alternative to Auth0, especially for developers seeking a cost-effective and highly customizable option.

Key features

• Enterprise SSO: It supports popular SSO protocols like OpenID Connect and SAML. 
• Identity brokering and social login: Keycloak easily integrates with external identity providers using OpenID Connect or SAML. This includes support for social logins such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, allowing users to authenticate using their existing social media accounts.
• User federation: Keycloak can connect to existing user directories like LDAP or Active Directory, allowing for seamless integration and synchronization of user data.
• Fine-grained authorization: In addition to standard role-based access controls, Keycloak offers detailed authorization settings to manage permissions precisely across your services.
• Customizable user interface: You can tailor the login, registration, administration, and account management interfaces to meet your needs.

Pricing

Keycloak is free to download, deploy, and use as an open-source project. However, if required, you may need to budget for hosting, support, and professional services.

Best for

Keycloak is best for organizations seeking an on-prem, self-hosted IAM solution.

4. Frontegg

Frontegg is a cloud-based platform designed to speed up app development by providing ready-to-use UI components and customizable building blocks. This makes it easy to integrate essential features like authentication, authorization, and user management into your applications.

Key features

• Hosted authentication: Frontegg provides an embeddable login box that simplifies user authentication. It supports enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) using protocols like SAML and OIDC, as well as social logins.
• User management: Frontegg manages roles, permissions, and access controls, which can be customized to fit the needs of various organizational structures.
• Admin portal: A customizable admin portal allows end-users to manage account usage, team settings, roles, and permissions, giving you full control over the user management lifecycle. Your customers can also use it to set up their SCIM connection themselves.
• SCIM provisioning: Frontegg integrates with SCIM-compliant directories, allowing you to support user provisioning and deprovisioning.
• Fine-grained authorization: Allows you to manage users' permissions using attributes and advanced rules. You can use ABAC or ReBAC.
• Audit logs: Frontegg provides detailed audit logs and tracks all your user's actions.
• MFA and passwordless: Frontegg supports multi-factor authentication (MFA) and passwordless authentication.

Pricing

Frontegg is free for up to 7,500 monthly active users. 

For usage beyond this limit, you'll need to choose either the Scale plan or the Enterprise plan, both of which have custom pricing.

Best for

Frontegg is great for teams looking for an easy and fast way to add authentication to their apps. 

However, it might not be for you if you prefer upfront pricing. The details for plans beyond basic usage, necessary for higher user volumes, are not readily available and require direct contact with their sales team.

5. Firebase

Firebase is Google's comprehensive app development platform. Its authentication service supports passwords, phone numbers, and popular social identity providers.

Key features

• Multiple authentication methods: Firebase supports various sign-in methods, including email and password, phone authentication, and social providers like Google, Facebook, and GitHub.
• FirebaseUI: This customizable, open-source UI handles the sign-in and sign-up flows for your app.
• Real-time database interaction: Firebase Authentication works seamlessly with other Firebase services like the Real-time Database, which synchronizes data instantly across all clients and provides offline support.
• Easy upgrade to Google Cloud Identity platform: If you want more features than Firebase auth provides, you can easily upgrade to Identity Platform and get MFA, blocking functions, and enterprise SLAs.

Pricing

All authentication features beyond phone authentication are free of charge.

• Spark plan (no cost): Free 10 SMS sent/day for phone auth.
• Blaze plan (pay as you go): Phone auth is billed per SMS.

Firebase auth has new limits when used with the Identity platform:

• Spark plan (no cost): No-cost up for 3,000 Daily Active Users(DAUs) and 2 DAUs for SAML/OIDC connections.
• Blaze plan (pay as you go): No-cost up to 50k MAUs, then 0.0025 to 0.0055 per MAU and 50 MAUs for SAML/OIDC connections, then 0.015 per MAU.

Best for

Firebase is an ideal Auth0 alternative for developers already leveraging other Firebase services or those seeking a tightly integrated authentication solution within the Google ecosystem.

Frequently asked questions

What should I consider when choosing an Auth0 alternative?

The key factors to evaluate are cost, customization options, and support. Many alternatives offer more affordable pricing plans, especially for smaller projects. Customization is crucial — you want flexible tools that integrate seamlessly with your existing tech stack. Top-notch support can make or break your experience, so look for providers with reputable customer service.

Is it difficult to migrate from Auth0 to another provider?

Depending on your app's setup, migrating from Auth0 to another provider can be difficult. For example, the process could be quite complex if your Auth0 configuration includes many custom rules, hooks, and actions. These elements must be recreated or modified to work with the new provider. 

However, Auth0's management API can simplify part of the migration by allowing you to easily retrieve all your user data. To transfer password hashes, you will need to file a support ticket.

Can Auth0 alternatives handle enterprise requirements?

Absolutely. WorkOS is a strong alternative to Auth0 for meeting enterprise requirements. It offers essential features like Directory Sync, OIDC SSO, SAML SSO, and audit logs, which are critical for any business aiming to operate at an enterprise level.

Are there any free or open-source Auth0 alternatives?

Yes. Keycloak, for example, is a popular open-source identity and access management solution to consider. It allows full customization but requires more hands-on management. It can be cost-effective for teams with the expertise to self-host and maintain the software. 

Next steps

WorkOS stands out as the ultimate Auth0 alternative for enterprise applications. With a single integration, you can connect your app to corporate identity providers like Okta and Microsoft Entra and get ready to support your first enterprise client within minutes instead of months.

• Get started fast: With SDKs in every popular language, easy-to-follow documentation, and Slack-based support, you can implement SSO in minutes rather than weeks.
• Support every protocol: With OAuth 2.0 integrations to popular providers like Google and Microsoft, compatibility with every major IdP, and full support for custom SAML/OIDC connections, WorkOS can support any enterprise customer.
• Avoid the back-and-forth: WorkOS’s Admin Portal takes the pain out of onboarding your customers’ IT teams and configuring your app to work with their identity provider.
• Pricing that makes sense: Unlike competitors who price by monthly active users, WorkOS charges a flat rate for each company you onboard — whether they bring 10 or 10,000 SSO users to your app.

Sign up for WorkOS today, and start selling to enterprise customers tomorrow.