head to head · open source
Better Auth vs Zitadel
Better Auth has 29,988 GitHub stars, 2,894 forks, 723 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zitadel has 15,041 stars, 1,309 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Better Auth leads on adoption by 99% (29,988 vs 15,041 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Better Auth | Zitadel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 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
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 Zitadel
Zitadel is an open source identity and access management platform written in Go and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It lives in the open source IAM ecosystem and provides identity infrastructure for developers who need to operate an authentication and authorization layer themselves.
read the full Zitadel overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Identity & Access Management (IAM) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Identity & Access Management (IAM) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Better Auth or Zitadel more popular?
Better Auth has 29,988 GitHub stars and Zitadel has 15,041. 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 (29,988 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Zitadel if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.