head to head · open source
Better Auth vs Hexclave
Better Auth has 30,019 GitHub stars, 2,896 forks, 723 open issues and last shipped today. Hexclave has 6,863 stars, 522 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Better Auth leads on adoption by 337% (30,019 vs 6,863 stars). Better Auth is written in TypeScript under MIT; Hexclave is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Better Auth has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Hexclave 8%. Better Auth was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (authentication, 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 | Hexclave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 522 |
| 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 Hexclave if
- You want the Hexclave feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Hexclave 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 Hexclave
Hexclave is an open source user infrastructure platform written in TypeScript and distributed under a license the repository metadata lists as NOASSERTION, while the README badge states MIT / AGPLv3. It describes itself as handling everything around a product's users: authentication, teams, payments, emails, analytics, and more. The project lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem, shipping SDKs for Next.js, React, and plain JavaScript, and it is positioned against hosted identity and user management services such as Auth0 and Clerk, both of which appear in its topic list.
read the full Hexclave overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Better Auth or Hexclave more popular?
Better Auth has 30,019 GitHub stars and Hexclave has 6,863. Better Auth has the larger community by that measure.
Are Better Auth and Hexclave free?
Both are open source. Better Auth is licensed under MIT, and Hexclave has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Better Auth and Hexclave?
Better Auth is written in TypeScript and Hexclave in TypeScript. 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 Hexclave?
Choose Better Auth if you want the larger community (30,019 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Hexclave if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.