What is the best way to add authentication to an app?
Use a managed provider. Session handling, token refresh, and account recovery are where hand-rolled auth breaks, and an agent writing it from scratch will produce something that works and is quietly unsafe.
Surveyed 17 September 2026
Add authentication
Open in Tools →- 01Clerk
Drop-in authentication and user management covering sign-up, sign-in, profiles, and organizations.
Developer Tools - 02Auth0
Identity platform providing social login, enterprise SSO, multi-factor auth, and authorization as a service.
Developer Tools - 03Supabase Auth
Postgres-backed authentication for Supabase with email, social login, magic links, phone sign-in, and SSO.
Developer Tools - 04Auth.js
Open-source, framework-agnostic authentication library for the web, formerly known as NextAuth.
Developer Tools - 05WorkOS
B2B auth platform providing enterprise SSO, SCIM directory sync, OIDC, magic auth, and audit logs.
Developer Tools - 06Firebase Auth
Authentication built into Firebase, covering email/password, social, phone, and anonymous sign-in.
Developer Tools - 07Better Auth
Framework-agnostic TypeScript auth library with bring-your-own-database adapters for Drizzle, Prisma, and Kysely.
Developer Tools - 08AWS Cognito
AWS-native auth with user pools, identity pools, and social and enterprise federation, tied into IAM.
Developer Tools - 09Microsoft Entra ID
Microsoft's identity platform, formerly Azure AD, covering SSO, MFA, conditional access, and external identities.
Developer Tools
A curated selection in editorial order. Use the fit and evidence to judge it for your task. Something missing?
What to look for
- 01Does it hand you a verified session server-side, or only a client-side token you must validate yourself?
- 02Does it cover recovery, email change, and session revocation? Those are most of the real work.
- 03Does authorization integrate with your database's access rules, or sit beside them?
Common questions
- Should I let an AI agent write authentication from scratch?
- No. It will produce something that logs users in and is subtly wrong — token validation on the client only, sessions that never revoke, redirects that can be pointed anywhere. Use a provider.
- What is the most common auth bug in generated code?
- Trusting a client-supplied user ID instead of the server-verified session, which lets any authenticated user act as any other by changing one value in the request.
More in Ship and operate
- Interface with your agentsCLI harnesses, IDEs, control planes, desktop apps, multiplexers, and terminals for steering coding agents.
- Deploy an applicationPublish previews and production builds without managing servers.
- Add a backendCombine databases, storage, APIs, and server-side functions.
- Accept paymentsAdd subscriptions, checkout, billing, and payment infrastructure.
- Choose data infrastructureCompare databases, object storage, vector search, ORMs, and managed data services.
- Choose compute and GPUsFind cloud compute, serverless runtimes, and GPU providers for training and inference.
- Monitor product and usageCompare error monitoring, observability, product analytics, and web analytics.
- Automate deliveryBuild, test, preview, and release changes through CI/CD services.
- Add email and messagingSend transactional email, notifications, chat, and product messages.
- Protect agent credentialsCompare vaults, short-lived credentials, and egress proxies that keep secrets out of agent context.