head to head · open source
Better Auth vs caddy-security
Better Auth has 30,093 GitHub stars, 2,917 forks, 723 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. caddy-security has 2,239 stars, 102 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped today. Better Auth leads on adoption by 1,244% (30,093 vs 2,239 stars). Better Auth is written in TypeScript under MIT; caddy-security is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Better Auth has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, caddy-security 5%. caddy-security was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (authentication, oauth2, sso), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Better Auth | caddy-security | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-25 | 2026-09-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 102 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Better Auth if
- You weight community size — 30K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick caddy-security if
- You want the caddy-security feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and caddy-security fits your workflow better
About Better Auth
Better Auth is a framework agnostic authentication and authorization framework written in TypeScript. It targets the broader JavaScript/TypeScript ecosystem and is designed to integrate with any backend or frontend framework, including Next.js, Express, SvelteKit, and others. It provides a unified API surface for core identity workflows such as sign up, sign in, session management, and passwordless flows.
read the full Better Auth overview →
About caddy-security
caddy security is an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) app and plugin for Caddy v2 that implements form based, basic, local, LDAP, OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0 and SAML sign in together with JWT and PASETO request authorization, and it is aimed at operators and security teams who terminate HTTP traffic with Caddy and want identity enforcement to happen inside the web server itself.
read the full caddy-security overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Identity & Access Management (IAM) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Identity & Access Management (IAM) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Better Auth or caddy-security more popular?
Better Auth has 30,093 GitHub stars and caddy-security has 2,239. Better Auth has the larger community by that measure.
Are Better Auth and caddy-security free?
Both are open source. Better Auth is licensed under MIT and caddy-security under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Better Auth and caddy-security?
Better Auth is written in TypeScript and caddy-security in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Better Auth or caddy-security?
Choose Better Auth if you want the larger community (30,093 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose caddy-security if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.