Auth0 Alternatives: Cheaper Options and What Migrating Takes

Short answer: The main Auth0 alternatives are WorkOS for B2B SaaS apps that sell enterprise SSO, Clerk for small teams that want a low entry price, Amazon Cognito for AWS-hosted apps priced per user, FusionAuth for teams that want a self-hostable commercial product, and Keycloak for teams that can run their own open-source identity server.

Why teams look for Auth0 alternatives

Teams usually look for Auth0 alternatives because of cost at scale, especially per-connection charges for enterprise SSO. Auth0, owned by Okta, remains a capable customer identity (CIAM) platform with a generous free tier, so the reasons are mostly about price structure, not product failure.

• Price changes: effective November 1, 2023, Auth0 raised B2C Essentials from $23 per month for 1,000 MAU to $35 per month for 500 MAU, and B2B Essentials from $130 to $150 per month, while leaving existing plans unchanged until a customer modifies its subscription (Auth0 blog).
• Enterprise SSO charged per connection: the Free plan includes one enterprise SSO connection, the B2C Essentials and B2C Professional plans include none, and B2B plans add connections at $100 per month each beyond the included 3 or 5 (Auth0 pricing, checked September 22, 2026). For a SaaS company whose customers each want SAML login, that cost grows with every deal.
• Custom quotes at the top: the Enterprise plan, which carries the 99.99% SLA, is quote-only (Auth0 pricing).

What Auth0 still does well: on September 24, 2024 it raised the free plan from 7,500 to 25,000 MAU and added unlimited social and Okta connections (Auth0 blog). For a consumer app under that limit, the free plan is hard to beat.

Auth0 alternatives compared

Prices checked September 22, 2026, on each vendor's pricing page.

Pricing note: figures are list prices from each vendor's site on September 22, 2026, and exclude SMS, email and hosting costs.

What 10 enterprise SSO customers costs on each platform

Per-connection pricing is where Auth0 alternatives differ most for B2B apps. With 10 customers each needing one SAML connection, and before any per-user charges:

Auth0 base prices cover 500 MAU, so a larger user base raises the Auth0 figures; WorkOS includes up to 1 million MAU at no charge. Sources: Auth0, Clerk, WorkOS.

1. WorkOS: best for B2B SaaS apps selling enterprise SSO

WorkOS is the Auth0 alternative with the most detailed Auth0 migration guide, and its user management product, AuthKit, is free for the first 1 million MAU (WorkOS pricing). Enterprise SSO and SCIM directory sync are each $125 per connection per month for 1 to 15 connections, dropping to $65 at 51 to 100.

• Best for: SaaS companies whose revenue depends on passing enterprise security reviews.
• Not for: consumer apps that need SMS one-time codes, because WorkOS does not support SMS MFA (WorkOS Auth0 migration guide).

Moving from Auth0: WorkOS documents a CLI export (npx workos migrations export auth0) using Auth0 Management API credentials, then a merge-passwords step once Auth0 support sends your bcrypt hashes, which WorkOS says "can take up to a week or more" (WorkOS docs). Social logins match on email address. SMS MFA users must re-enroll with email Magic Auth or a TOTP app.

2. Clerk: best for small teams that want a low entry price

Clerk suits startups because every plan, including the free Hobby plan, includes 50,000 monthly retained users (MRU) per app, and Pro costs $25 per month, or $20 billed annually (Clerk pricing, checked September 22, 2026). Above 50,000 MRU, users cost $0.02 each per month, falling to $0.012 above 10 million.

• Best for: product teams building on modern web frameworks who want prebuilt sign-in UI.
• Not for: teams that need self-hosting; Clerk's pricing page lists hosted plans only.

Watch out: Pro and Business include one enterprise SSO connection; connections 2 to 15 cost $75 per month each (Clerk pricing).

Moving from Auth0: Clerk publishes an open-source import tool that takes JSON or CSV and a trickle-migration pattern that keeps both systems running during the switch; imported hashes are upgraded to bcrypt (Clerk migration docs). The guide does not name Auth0 specifically, so plan to map Auth0's export fields yourself.

3. Amazon Cognito: best for apps already running on AWS

Amazon Cognito is the Auth0 alternative with the lowest per-user list price for teams inside AWS. The Lite tier costs $0.0055 per MAU for the first 100,000 after a 10,000 MAU free tier, Essentials costs $0.015 per MAU, and Plus costs $0.020 with no free tier (Cognito pricing, checked September 22, 2026).

• Best for: AWS-native teams that want billing, IAM and logs in one account.
• Not for: B2B apps with many federated enterprise users on a tight budget.

Watch out: users who sign in through SAML or OIDC federation cost $0.015 per MAU above a 50 MAU free tier, on every tier (Cognito pricing). SMS and email are billed separately through SNS and SES.

Moving from Auth0: Cognito offers a bulk CSV import of profile attributes, or a user migration Lambda trigger that moves each user at first sign-in so they keep their existing password (AWS documentation). The Lambda route avoids waiting for Auth0 hash exports, but Auth0 must stay live until most users have signed in.

4. FusionAuth: best for self-hosting with a commercial upgrade path

FusionAuth fits teams that want to start free on their own servers and buy hosting or support later. The Community edition is free and self-hosted with unlimited users; Starter begins at $162 per month billed annually with basic FusionAuth Cloud hosting; Essentials and Enterprise both start at $2,970 per month (FusionAuth pricing, checked September 22, 2026). FusionAuth says all paid tiers include SAML v2 and enterprise SSO.

• Best for: teams with data residency rules that favor running identity in their own environment.
• Not for: small teams that need a 99.99% SLA, which is on the Enterprise tier only.

Moving from Auth0: FusionAuth publishes an open-source Ruby script (Ruby 3.0+) that maps Auth0 users, hashes and social links. Its guide says Auth0 "requires you to be on a paid plan to export your password hashes" and that TOTP secrets do not transfer (FusionAuth guide). FusionAuth also maps users to applications through explicit registrations, unlike Auth0's tenant-wide default.

5. Keycloak: best for teams that run their own infrastructure

Keycloak is the most common answer to "is there an open-source Auth0". It is a free, open-source identity server supporting OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0 and SAML, with built-in LDAP and Active Directory federation, and it is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation incubation project (Keycloak, checked September 22, 2026). Version 26.7.4 was listed as the latest release.

• Best for: organizations with platform engineers who already run Kubernetes or Java services.
• Not for: small teams without on-call capacity; there is no vendor SLA.

Watch out: zero license cost does not mean zero cost. You own upgrades, database backups, high availability and security patching.

Moving from Auth0: Keycloak's documentation does not publish an Auth0 importer. Plan for custom scripting against Auth0's bulk user export, and confirm that your Keycloak setup can verify Auth0's bcrypt hashes before cutover, or force password resets.

When to stay with Auth0

Staying with Auth0 makes sense when switching costs more than the bill it saves.

• You fit the free plan: a consumer app under 25,000 MAU with social login pays nothing (Auth0 pricing).
• You depend on Auth0 Actions and Rules: custom login logic has no one-to-one equivalent elsewhere and must be rewritten.
• You use SMS MFA widely: WorkOS drops SMS, and FusionAuth notes some MFA secrets do not move, so users would re-enroll.
• You have few enterprise connections: 3 connections on B2B Essentials may cover a young B2B product.
• You are mid-contract: Auth0 said the November 2023 changes did not alter existing plans unless you change your subscription (Auth0 blog).

How to switch without breaking things

1. Inventory everything: applications, callback URLs, social connections, enterprise connections, Actions and API scopes.
2. Request password hashes early: open the Auth0 support ticket first. Auth0 does not offer hash exports on the Free plan and gives no delivery date, and approval needs a PGP key and an executive-signed acknowledgment form.
3. Choose bulk or trickle migration: bulk moves everyone at once; trickle (Cognito Lambda trigger, Clerk's pattern) keeps Auth0 live during the move.
4. Recreate enterprise SSO connections with each customer: SAML metadata, entity IDs and ACS URLs change, so schedule changes with each customer's IT team.
5. Plan MFA re-enrollment: tell SMS and TOTP users they will enroll again.
6. Pilot with internal users: move a staff tenant or test organization before customers.
7. Keep a rollback window: leave the Auth0 tenant active until sign-in error rates settle.
8. Update token validation: backends that verify Auth0 JWTs need the new issuer and signing keys.

Bottom line

If enterprise SSO connections drive your Auth0 bill, price WorkOS and Clerk against your real connection count using the table above. If your app lives in AWS, a Cognito trickle migration avoids waiting on Auth0's hash export. Stay on Auth0 if you are inside the free plan or deeply invested in Actions. Compare vendors in the single sign-on category hub, then score finalists with the shortlist builder.