head to head · open source
Better Auth vs casdoor
Better Auth has 30,019 GitHub stars, 2,896 forks, 723 open issues and last shipped today. casdoor has 14,434 stars, 1,818 forks, 97 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Better Auth leads on adoption by 108% (30,019 vs 14,434 stars). Better Auth is written in TypeScript under MIT; casdoor is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Better Auth has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, casdoor 13%. Better Auth was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (authentication, iam, oauth), 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.
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Side by side
| Better Auth | casdoor | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 casdoor if
- You want the casdoor 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 casdoor 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 casdoor
Casdoor is an open source, self hosted identity and access management platform written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0, which provides a single sign on and authentication server with a web console for teams that want to own their user directory rather than delegate it to a hosted provider.
read the full casdoor overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Better Auth or casdoor more popular?
Better Auth has 30,019 GitHub stars and casdoor has 14,434. Better Auth has the larger community by that measure.
Are Better Auth and casdoor free?
Both are open source. Better Auth is licensed under MIT and casdoor under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Better Auth and casdoor?
Better Auth is written in TypeScript and casdoor 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 casdoor?
Choose Better Auth if you want the larger community (30,019 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose casdoor if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.