head to head · open source
Better Auth vs pgrok
Better Auth has 30,742 GitHub stars, 3,078 forks, 723 open issues and last shipped today. pgrok has 3,645 stars, 134 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped today. Better Auth leads on adoption by 743% (30,742 vs 3,645 stars). Better Auth is written in TypeScript under MIT; pgrok is written in Go under MIT. Better Auth has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, pgrok 4%. pgrok was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (oidc, 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.
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Side by side
| Better Auth | pgrok | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-14 | 2026-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 134 |
| 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 pgrok if
- You want the pgrok feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pgrok 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 pgrok
Programmable Networking What? pgrok is a self hosted, multi tenant networking platform for exposing HTTP services and raw TCP connections through SSH reverse tunnels. Run it on your own infrastructure with your own domain and OIDC compatible SSO provider. Users sign in through your team's SSO to obtain their tunnel credentials and stable HTTP subdomains. Use the pgrok CLI to create tunnels, choose predictable subdomains, and route HTTP requests to different local services by path—or connect with a standard SSH client. Why? Stable subdomains and SSO are two things too expensive. Why not just pick one from the…
read the full pgrok overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Better Auth or pgrok more popular?
Better Auth has 30,742 GitHub stars and pgrok has 3,645. Better Auth has the larger community by that measure.
Are Better Auth and pgrok free?
Both are open source. Better Auth is licensed under MIT and pgrok under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Better Auth and pgrok?
Better Auth is written in TypeScript and pgrok 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 pgrok?
Choose Better Auth if you want the larger community (30,742 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pgrok if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.