Auth0 vs Hanko for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Auth0 Overview

Auth0, part of Okta, is the enterprise identity platform that covers every auth scenario. Social logins, MFA, passwordless, SAML SSO, SCIM, machine-to-machine tokens, and RBAC. It's a fully managed service where Auth0 handles hosting, security, compliance, and scaling.

The Universal Login redirects users to Auth0's hosted page for authentication. Actions let you customize auth flows with serverless code. SDKs exist for every major framework. The dashboard manages applications, connections, users, and policies.

Auth0 has been the standard recommendation for enterprise auth for years. The depth of features and the breadth of framework support make it a safe choice for almost any project.

Hanko Overview

Hanko is an open-source authentication platform built around passkeys and WebAuthn. It's designed for the passwordless future: users authenticate with biometrics (Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello) instead of typing passwords. No passwords means no password breaches, no reset flows, and no credential stuffing attacks.

Hanko provides web components that you drop into your app. The <hanko-auth> element renders a complete login flow with passkey registration, email fallback, and passcode verification. It's framework-agnostic and works with React, Vue, Svelte, or plain HTML. The backend is a Go server you can self-host or use Hanko Cloud.

I tried Hanko in a side project specifically to test passkey-based auth. The setup was surprisingly quick. The web component handled the entire flow, and the user experience was genuinely better than traditional login. Tap Face ID, you're in. No password to remember, no 2FA codes to enter.

Key Differences

Authentication philosophy. Auth0 supports everything: passwords, social, passwordless, passkeys, MFA. It's the Swiss army knife of auth. Hanko is opinionated. It pushes passkeys as the primary auth method with email passcodes as fallback. If you believe passwordless is the future, Hanko aligns with that vision. If you want every option available, Auth0 provides it.

User experience. Hanko's passkey-first flow is genuinely smoother than traditional login. Users register once with a biometric, then log in with a tap. No password manager needed, no MFA step. Auth0's Universal Login is functional but conventional: email, password, maybe a 2FA code. The UX gap is real for end users.

Cost. Hanko's open-source server is free to self-host with no MAU ceiling. Auth0 stays free up to 25,000 monthly active users on its current Free plan, then moves you to Essentials B2C from $35/month (which itself starts at just 500 MAU before scaling). Hanko Cloud, if you do not want to self-host, gives you 10,000 MAU free on Starter and charges $0.01 per MAU above that on the $29/month Pro plan. If you self-host Hanko on infrastructure you already run, auth costs you nothing. Auth0's costs scale with your user base once you cross the free ceiling.

Enterprise features. Auth0 has SAML SSO, SCIM, organizations, and compliance certifications. Hanko focuses on passkeys and doesn't have enterprise SSO features. If your customers need SAML login, Auth0 is the answer. Hanko isn't built for that market.

Maturity and ecosystem. Auth0 has been around since 2013, processes billions of logins monthly, and has SDKs for every framework. Hanko is younger and smaller. Its main repository opened in March 2022 and now sits at 8,939 GitHub stars with 1,014 forks, and the web-component packages pull roughly 9,000 npm downloads a week combined. That is real and growing traction, but it is not comparable to Auth0's decade of scale. If you need battle-tested stability, Auth0 has the track record.

Browser support. Passkeys require WebAuthn browser support. Modern browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge) support it, but older browsers and some edge cases don't. Hanko provides email passcode fallback. Auth0 works everywhere because traditional auth flows don't depend on browser capabilities.

By the Numbers (2026)

The marketing copy on both sites moves around, so here are the verified figures as of 2026-05-28.

Auth0

• Free plan: up to 25,000 monthly active users, with passwordless, unlimited social and Okta connections, and custom domain support included.
• Essentials B2C: from $35/month, which starts at 500 MAU and scales from there.
• Essentials B2B: from $150/month, starting at 500 MAU.
• Professional B2C: from $240/month, starting at 500 MAU.
• Enterprise: custom pricing, contact sales.
• Overage: Auth0 defines an MAU as any user who logs in at least once in a 30-day window, and overage billing has historically been quoted around $0.07 per MAU on usage-based contracts.

Hanko

• License: open source, backend written in Go.
• Latest release: Hanko 2.5 (tag backend/v2.5.0), published 2026-03-03, which added name and picture user attributes, AMR values in session tokens, and an expanded /me endpoint.
• Frontend package: @teamhanko/hanko-elements is at version 2.6.0.
• Adoption: 8,939 GitHub stars, 1,014 forks; repository created 2022-03-14.
• npm pull: about 4,419 weekly downloads for hanko-elements plus 4,972 for hanko-frontend-sdk in the week of 2026-05-21 to 2026-05-27, roughly 9,000 combined.
• Hanko Cloud Starter: free, 10,000 MAU, 2 production projects.
• Hanko Cloud Pro: $29/month with 10,000 MAU included, then $0.01 per MAU above that, 5 projects.
• Startup plan: qualifying startups can apply for 1 million MAU free.

Real Cost at Solo-Dev Scale

Pricing tables hide the thing you actually care about, which is what you pay as your product grows. Here is a like-for-like comparison using each vendor's hosted plan and their published per-unit rates. The self-hosted Hanko path is left out of the dollar math because its cost is just your existing server bill, which for most solo projects is a VPS you already pay for.

Assumptions: a single consumer product, hosted auth on both sides, billed monthly, using Auth0's Essentials B2C entry plan and Hanko Cloud's Pro plan once you outgrow the free tiers.

Read this carefully, because the headline is counterintuitive. At small scale both are free. The interesting crossover is that Auth0's current Free plan reaches all the way to 25,000 MAU, which is higher than Hanko Cloud's 10,000 free Starter ceiling. So for a hobby or early product on hosted plans, Auth0 can actually be cheaper than Hanko Cloud until you pass 25,000 users.

Two things flip that conclusion for a lot of solo devs. First, Hanko is open source, so self-hosting the Go backend on a server you already run takes the per-MAU meter off the table entirely, which Auth0 cannot match at any tier. Second, if you are an early-stage startup, Hanko's startup program offers 1 million MAU free, which beats every paid path here outright. Pick hosted Hanko only if you want passkeys plus a managed backend and you are comfortable with the $0.01-per-MAU meter past 10,000. Otherwise the real Hanko value is self-hosting, and the real Auth0 value is that generous 25,000 free ceiling.

When to Choose Auth0

• You need enterprise SSO (SAML, SCIM) for B2B customers
• You want maximum compatibility with every browser and device
• Compliance certifications are required
• You need auth features beyond login (machine-to-machine, LDAP)
• You prefer a battle-tested platform with years of production use

When to Choose Hanko

• You want to offer passkey-first authentication (the best UX)
• Passwordless security is a priority for your product
• You prefer open-source and want to self-host your auth
• You're building a modern consumer app where UX matters
• You want to eliminate password-related support tickets entirely

The Verdict

Auth0 is the safe, proven choice with maximum flexibility. It handles every auth scenario and works with every framework. For solo developers building products that need to work reliably today, Auth0 is the practical pick. You can always add passkey support through Auth0 later.

Hanko is the forward-looking choice. Passkeys are the future of authentication, and Hanko is built specifically for that future. If you're building a new consumer product and want the best possible login experience, Hanko delivers that. The passwordless flow genuinely delights users.

My recommendation: if you're building a consumer product from scratch, give Hanko a serious look. The UX improvement from passkeys is meaningful, and Hanko makes it easy to implement. If you need enterprise features, broad framework support, or can't risk any compatibility issues, Auth0 is the reliable default. Most solo developers should at least prototype with Hanko to see what passwordless feels like in practice.

Sources

All figures checked on 2026-05-28.

• Auth0 pricing, Free plan at 25,000 MAU and paid tier starting prices: https://auth0.com/pricing
• Auth0 free-plan expansion announcement (Okta newsroom): https://www.okta.com/newsroom/press-releases/auth0-takes-free-for-developers-to-a-new-level-with-more-users-more/
• Auth0 MAU definition and overage explanation: https://auth0.com/blog/auth0-monthly-active-user-mau-explained/
• Hanko Cloud pricing, Starter free 10,000 MAU and Pro at $29/month plus $0.01 per MAU: https://www.hanko.io/pricing
• Hanko startup program, 1 million MAU free: https://www.hanko.io/startup-plan
• Hanko GitHub repository, stars, forks, language, creation date: https://github.com/teamhanko/hanko
• Hanko 2.5 release notes: https://github.com/teamhanko/hanko/releases/tag/backend/v2.5.0
• Hanko npm weekly downloads (hanko-elements): https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-week/@teamhanko/hanko-elements