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Stack Auth

Fast, developer-friendly authentication with built-in dashboard and RBAC

Identity & SSO

Stack Auth delivers instant sign-in, sign-up, and user management for Next.js and React apps, offering OAuth, passkeys, multi-tenancy, RBAC, and a ready-made dashboard—all deployable in minutes.

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Overview

Overview

Stack Auth is a managed authentication platform designed for modern JavaScript teams. It works out-of-the-box with Next.js, React, and any backend that can call its REST API, letting developers focus on product features instead of security plumbing.

Getting Started

The solution includes ready-made and components, a user dashboard, account settings, multi-tenancy, role-based access control, OAuth connections, passkey support, impersonation, webhooks, and automatic email templates. After a five-minute wizard you receive API keys, drop them into a .env file, and your app is ready to authenticate users. The managed service is optional; you can export data and self-host the dashboard for free. Development requires Node v20, pnpm, and Docker for the local stack, but production can run on any environment that supports the REST endpoints.

Highlights

Prebuilt `<SignIn/>` / `<SignUp/>` components with OAuth, password and magic‑link support
Built-in user dashboard and account settings UI
Multi‑tenancy, teams, and role‑based access control
Passkey (passwordless) authentication and OAuth token management

Pros

  • Quick five‑minute setup
  • Deep integration with Next.js server components
  • Comprehensive feature set covering auth, authorization, and user management
  • Optional managed service with free self‑hosting

Considerations

  • Primarily targets JavaScript/Node ecosystems
  • Local development requires Docker and pnpm
  • Feature richness may be overkill for simple static sites
  • Dual MIT/AGPL licensing may affect commercial use decisions

Managed products teams compare with

When teams consider Stack Auth, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.

Auth0 logo

Auth0

Cloud-based identity management platform for adding user authentication and authorization to applications

Amazon Cognito logo

Amazon Cognito

Customer identity and access management service for adding user sign-up, sign-in, and authentication to apps

Clerk logo

Clerk

User authentication and identity APIs for web and mobile apps

Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.

Fit guide

Great for

  • SaaS startups needing fast, secure user onboarding
  • B2B platforms that require multi‑tenant organization structures
  • Applications that want passwordless or passkey login
  • Teams that need built-in RBAC and admin dashboards

Not ideal when

  • Pure static sites without a backend
  • Projects using non-JavaScript backends exclusively
  • Small hobby projects with minimal authentication needs
  • Environments where Docker cannot be run

How teams use it

SaaS product launch

Launches with instant sign-up, email verification, and passwordless login, reducing time-to-market.

Internal admin panel

Provides a ready dashboard for managing users, roles, and organizations without custom code.

Calendar integration

Uses OAuth connections to store and refresh Google Calendar tokens, enabling seamless scheduling features.

Service-to-service API

Employs M2M short-lived tokens for secure machine authentication across microservices.

Tech snapshot

TypeScript99%
JavaScript1%
PLpgSQL1%
HTML1%
Dockerfile1%
CSS1%

Tags

auth0shadcnsocial-loginpasswordmagic-linkkeycloakreactsession-managementloginoauthemail-passwordnextjsauthcognitotypescriptauthenticationsupabase-authsigninfirebase-authclerk

Frequently asked questions

Can I self-host Stack Auth?

Yes, the managed service is optional; you can export your data and run the dashboard on your own infrastructure for free.

Which front-end frameworks are supported?

Out of the box it provides components for Next.js and React, and any JavaScript front-end can call the REST API.

How does role-based access control work?

You define a permission graph and assign roles to users or organizations; roles can be scoped per tenant.

Do I need to use the managed service?

No, you can start with the hosted service and later switch to a self-hosted deployment at any time.

What are the system requirements for development?

Node v20, pnpm v9, and Docker (or OrbStack) are required to run the local development stack.

Project at a glance

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Repo age2 years old
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