head to head · open source
Better Auth vs Ory
Better Auth has 30,019 GitHub stars, 2,896 forks, 723 open issues and last shipped today. Ory has 13,883 stars, 1,186 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Better Auth leads on adoption by 116% (30,019 vs 13,883 stars). Better Auth is written in TypeScript under MIT; Ory is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Better Auth has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Ory 9%. Better Auth was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Ory | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-07-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 Ory if
- You want the Ory 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 Ory 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 Ory
Ory Kratos is headless cloud native authentication and identity management system written in Go. It sits inside Ory stack and Security & Privacy / Identity & Access Management category. It exposes identity work over HTTP APIs. Services consume login, registration, recovery, verification, profile management instead of reimplementing them.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Better Auth or Ory more popular?
Better Auth has 30,019 GitHub stars and Ory has 13,883. Better Auth has the larger community by that measure.
Are Better Auth and Ory free?
Both are open source. Better Auth is licensed under MIT and Ory under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Better Auth and Ory?
Better Auth is written in TypeScript and Ory 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 Ory?
Choose Better Auth if you want the larger community (30,019 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Ory if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.