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Dataset · CC BY 4.0 · checked 2026-11-05

Identity Developer Experience Benchmark

How 28 auth platforms and libraries compare on what a developer actually touches: official SDKs, prebuilt sign-in and passkey enrollment UI, quickstart length, local development, management APIs and OpenAPI specs, rate-limit documentation, and AI-era support such as MCP servers, MCP authorization and token exchange. Every fact links to the vendor's own docs, and the score is a published rubric you can reweight.

28
auth platforms and libraries checked
14 of 28
publish an official MCP server for your account
10 of 28
ship embeddable components plus a prebuilt passkey enrollment screen
68%
publish an OpenAPI spec for their API
Must have (all selected)
Reweight the score

Set how much each dimension counts. Your weighted score is the weighted share of the maximum, out of 100.

28 of 28 platforms

How to read it

Each number is points earned in one dimension, out of the maximum in the column header. Open "Facts and sources" on any row for the underlying values and the vendor pages behind them. "Not documented" means we could not find it on the vendor's own pages, which scores the same as "No" but is not a claim that the feature is missing. Download the full data as CSV or JSON.

Related

How the score works

100 points across eight dimensions. A documented "yes" earns full points, "partial" half, "no" and "not documented" zero. There is no editorial judgment in the number: two people reading the same vendor pages should reach the same score. GitHub stars and npm downloads are published as context but not scored, because popularity is not developer experience and would favor older products.

DimensionMaxPoints
SDKs151 per official server language (max 6) and 1 per official frontend or mobile framework (max 9)
Prebuilt UI10Hosted login page 3, embeddable components 4, passkey enrollment UI 3
Auth methods20Passkeys, magic link, social login, self-serve enterprise SSO (SAML and OIDC) and SCIM, 4 each
Quickstart5Official quickstart 2; steps counted on the page: 1 to 5 = 3, 6 to 8 = 2, 9 to 12 = 1
Local development10Development environment, emulator or local run 5, free tier 5
APIs20Management API 4, OpenAPI spec 4, webhooks 4, documented rate limits 3, status page 2, changelog entry within 90 days 3
AI era15Official MCP server 4, AI agent auth docs 3, M2M tokens 2, RFC 8693 token exchange 2, MCP authorization 2, llms.txt 2
Open source5Self-host 3, OSI-approved license on the main repository 2

Limits: step counts depend on how a vendor chunks its page, so a two-step page with long sections scores better than a twelve-step page with short ones. Libraries such as Better Auth and Auth.js lose UI and API points by design. Plan gating (SSO, SCIM or passkeys on a paid plan) is recorded in each row's notes rather than in the score.

About the benchmark

Which identity platform is better for developers?
On SWI's published 100-point rubric, the highest-scoring of 28 auth platforms checked 2026-11-05 are Auth0 (89.5), Clerk (89), Logto (86), WorkOS (86), Descope (85.5); the median is 70.5. The score counts documented facts only (official SDKs, prebuilt UI, auth methods, quickstart length, local development, APIs, AI-era features and open source), so the right choice still depends on what you need: filter for your framework and must-haves, or reweight the dimensions, and the order changes.
Which auth providers are developer-friendly for passwordless at a startup?
10 of 28 platforms document passkey sign-in, email magic links, a free tier and a development environment or local run: Clerk, Logto, Frontegg, FusionAuth, Scalekit, Stytch, SuperTokens, Authgear, Better Auth and Hexclave. Check the free tier limits on each pricing page, and whether passkeys or SSO move to a paid plan in production (Clerk, for example, needs a paid plan for passkeys in production).
How do customer identity platforms compare on time to integrate, developer docs and SDK quality?
Time to integrate is rarely stated: only 2 of 28 vendors put a time on their quickstart (WorkOS: "Integrating AuthKit into your app can be done in less than ten minutes."; Stytch: "Get up and running with Stytch in minutes."). Counted from the pages themselves, official quickstarts run from 2 to 12 steps, median 6. 6 platforms ship official SDKs for at least five server languages and six frontend or mobile frameworks: Auth0, Clerk, Logto, Descope, Kinde and Amazon Cognito. 24 publish an llms.txt index for AI coding assistants and 19 publish an OpenAPI spec.
Which auth provider has prebuilt UI components for passkey enrollment and fallback flows?
10 of 28 platforms document both embeddable UI components and a prebuilt screen where users enroll a passkey: Auth0, Clerk, Descope, Frontegg, Ory, Stytch, SuperTokens, Hexclave, Hanko and Corbado. 7 more (Logto, WorkOS, Kinde, ZITADEL, Authgear, authentik and Keycloak) ship the enrollment screen without fully embeddable sign-in components, mostly on a hosted or server-rendered page. 23 platforms support passkey sign-in in all, so for the rest you build the enrollment and fallback screens yourself.
Is Auth.js (NextAuth.js) still a good choice in 2026?
The Auth.js README now says "Auth js is now part of Better Auth" and recommends that new projects start with Better Auth. Its WebAuthn (passkeys) provider is labelled experimental, it has no user-management API, and the latest next-auth release we found is dated 2026-07-20. It scores 38 here, against 69 for Better Auth, which documents passkey, magic link, SSO, SCIM and MCP plugins but ships no prebuilt UI. Existing Auth.js apps keep working; the docs include a migration guide to Better Auth.
Which auth platforms have an official MCP server or support MCP authorization?
14 of 28 publish an official MCP server that lets an AI agent work with your account (Auth0, Clerk, Logto, WorkOS, Descope, Frontegg, FusionAuth, Scalekit, Stytch, Kinde, Amazon Cognito, Supabase Auth, Firebase Authentication / Identity Platform and Microsoft Entra External ID), and 7 more publish a documentation-only or limited one. 17 document acting as the OAuth authorization server for your own remote MCP server. Only 9 document OAuth 2.0 Token Exchange (RFC 8693): Auth0, Logto, WorkOS, Descope, Frontegg, FusionAuth, ZITADEL, authentik and Keycloak.
Which auth platforms support passkeys, SAML SSO and MCP?
8 of 28 document passkey sign-in, self-serve enterprise SSO (SAML and OIDC with a setup flow for the customer's IT admin) and an official MCP server: Auth0, Clerk, WorkOS, Descope, Frontegg, Scalekit, Stytch and Kinde. Use the "Passkeys + SAML + MCP" button above for the live list, which also counts developer-configured SSO.
How is the score calculated and can I reuse the data?
Every fact comes from the vendor's own docs, GitHub, npm or PyPI, checked 2026-11-05, with source links per platform. Yes scores full points, partial half, and no or not documented zero; GitHub stars and npm downloads are shown but not scored. The data is CC BY 4.0: download the CSV or JSON, cite the page and link back. Vendors can send corrections with a public documentation link through the contact page.