Clerk vs Supabase Auth for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Clerk Overview

Clerk is the auth platform that hands you production-ready authentication in 15 minutes. Install the package, add the provider component, drop <SignIn /> where you want the login form, and you're done. Social logins, MFA, session management, and user profiles come included with polished UI components.

What sets Clerk apart is the pre-built interface. The sign-in modal, user profile page, organization switcher, and account management pages all look professional and are customizable to match your brand. You don't build login forms. You configure them.

I integrated Clerk into a Next.js project and had Google, GitHub, and email/password working within an hour. The middleware handles route protection declaratively. The useUser() hook gives you the current user anywhere. The management dashboard shows every user, session, and auth event. For shipping fast, Clerk is hard to beat.

Supabase Auth Overview

Supabase Auth is the authentication system built into the Supabase platform. It supports email/password, magic links, phone auth, and OAuth providers (Google, GitHub, Apple, etc.). Because it's part of Supabase, it integrates directly with the PostgreSQL database and Row Level Security policies.

The killer feature is the free tier: 50,000 monthly active users. That's five times what Clerk offers for free. For solo developers building a consumer app that might attract a lot of signups, that headroom matters. And because Supabase Auth stores users in your own PostgreSQL database, you own the data completely.

I use Supabase Auth in a project where the backend is entirely Supabase. Users sign up, auth tokens flow through RLS policies, and database queries automatically filter by the authenticated user. No custom middleware, no token verification code. The integration between auth and database is seamless.

Key Differences

UI components. Clerk provides beautiful, polished React components that you drop into your app. Sign-in forms, user profiles, and organization management all come pre-built. Supabase Auth provides a React component library (@supabase/auth-ui-react), but it's less polished and less customizable than Clerk's components. If pre-built UI quality matters, Clerk wins.

Free tier generosity. Supabase Auth allows 50,000 MAU for free. Clerk allows 10,000. If your app is growing and you're not ready to pay, Supabase gives you 5x the runway. For a solo developer's side project that might go viral, that's a significant safety margin.

Platform integration. Supabase Auth is deeply integrated with the Supabase ecosystem. Auth tokens work with Row Level Security, letting you write database policies that reference auth.uid(). This means your security logic lives in the database, not in application code. Clerk doesn't integrate with your database at this level. You handle authorization in your application code.

Framework support. Clerk is optimized for React and Next.js. The integration is excellent in that ecosystem and functional elsewhere. Supabase Auth works with any framework through its JavaScript client, and has specific SDKs for React, Vue, Flutter, Swift, and Kotlin. If you're not using React, Supabase has broader support.

User management. Clerk's user management dashboard is polished. You can view users, manage sessions, impersonate users, and configure auth settings from a clean interface. Supabase's user management lives in the broader Supabase dashboard and is functional but less focused. Clerk treats user management as a first-class feature.

Vendor lock-in. With Supabase Auth, user data lives in your own PostgreSQL database in the auth schema. If you leave Supabase, you can export everything. With Clerk, user data lives on Clerk's servers. Migrating away from Clerk means exporting users and rebuilding auth. If data ownership concerns you, Supabase has the advantage.

When to Choose Clerk

• You're building with React or Next.js and want the fastest auth setup
• Beautiful, pre-built auth UI components are important to you
• You need a polished user management dashboard
• You're using a separate backend (not Supabase) for your database
• Organization and team features are requirements

When to Choose Supabase Auth

• You're already using Supabase for your database
• The 50,000 MAU free tier matters for your budget
• You want auth integrated with Row Level Security policies
• Data ownership and portability are priorities
• You're building with a non-React framework (Vue, Flutter, mobile)

The Verdict

If you're building a React or Next.js app and NOT using Supabase as your backend, Clerk is the better auth choice. The UI components, developer experience, and user management dashboard save real development time. You'll have auth working before you would have finished reading Supabase's auth docs.

If you're using Supabase for your database (and you probably should be, it's excellent), use Supabase Auth. The integration with Row Level Security is genuinely powerful. Having auth and database security unified in one platform eliminates an entire category of bugs. The 50,000 MAU free tier is an additional bonus.

My recommendation: let your database choice drive this decision. Supabase for your backend? Use Supabase Auth. Something else for your backend? Use Clerk. Both are top-tier auth solutions for solo developers.