head to head · open source
Better Auth vs casbin
Better Auth has 30,553 GitHub stars, 3,052 forks, 723 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. casbin has 20,476 stars, 1,767 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Better Auth leads on adoption by 49% (30,553 vs 20,476 stars). Better Auth is written in TypeScript under MIT; casbin is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Better Auth has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, casbin 9%. casbin was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (authentication, iam), 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 | casbin | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 20K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Better Auth if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick casbin if
- You want the casbin 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 casbin fits your workflow better
About Better Auth
Discord · Website · Issues Better Auth Better Auth is a framework agnostic authentication (and authorization) framework for TypeScript. It provides a comprehensive set of features out of the box and includes a plugin ecosystem that simplifies adding advanced functionalities with minimal code in a short amount of time. Whether you need 2FA, multi tenant support, or other complex features, it lets you focus on building your actual application instead of reinventing the wheel. Why Better Auth Authentication in the TypeScript ecosystem is a half solved problem. Other open source libraries often require a lot of…
read the full Better Auth overview →
About casbin
Apache Casbin ==== News : still worry about how to write the correct Apache Casbin policy? Apache Casbin online editor is coming to help! Try it at: Apache Casbin is a powerful and efficient open source access control library for Golang projects. It provides support for enforcing authorization based on various access control models. All the languages supported by Apache Casbin: Table of contents Supported models How it works? Features Installation Documentation Online editor Tutorials Get started Policy management Policy persistence Policy consistence between multiple nodes Role manager Benchmarks Examples…
read the full casbin 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 casbin more popular?
Better Auth has 30,553 GitHub stars and casbin has 20,476. Better Auth has the larger community by that measure.
Are Better Auth and casbin free?
Both are open source. Better Auth is licensed under MIT and casbin under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Better Auth and casbin?
Better Auth is written in TypeScript and casbin 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 casbin?
Choose Better Auth if you want the larger community (30,553 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose casbin if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.