head to head · open source
Better Auth vs Zitadel
Better Auth has 30,553 GitHub stars, 3,052 forks, 723 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Zitadel has 15,499 stars, 1,413 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Better Auth leads on adoption by 97% (30,553 vs 15,499 stars). Better Auth is written in TypeScript under MIT; Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Better Auth has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Zitadel 9%. Zitadel 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, oidc), 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 | Zitadel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 Zitadel if
- You want the Zitadel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Zitadel 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 Zitadel
The Identity Infrastructure for Developers ZITADEL is an open source identity and access management platform built for teams that need more than basic auth. Whether you're securing a SaaS product, building a B2B platform, or self hosting a production IAM stack — ZITADEL gives you everything out of the box: SSO, MFA, Passkeys, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, and a battle tested multi tenancy model. No vendor lock in. No compromise on control. Just a robust, API first identity platform you can own. 🏡 Website 💬 Chat 📋 Docs 🧑💻 Blog 📞 Contact Why ZITADEL We built ZITADEL to handle the hardest IAM challenges at scale —…
read the full Zitadel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Better Auth or Zitadel more popular?
Better Auth has 30,553 GitHub stars and Zitadel has 15,499. Better Auth has the larger community by that measure.
Are Better Auth and Zitadel free?
Both are open source. Better Auth is licensed under MIT and Zitadel under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Better Auth and Zitadel?
Better Auth is written in TypeScript and Zitadel 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 Zitadel?
Choose Better Auth if you want the larger community (30,553 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Zitadel if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.