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Clerk vs Supabase
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Clerk and Supabase.
Last reviewed:
| Feature | Clerk | Supabase |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Model | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free Tier | Yes | Yes |
| Monthly Cost (Solo) | $0 | $0 |
| Target Audience | solopreneurs, developers, startups | solopreneurs, startups, developers |
| Verified | Yes | Yes |
| Solo-Friendly | Yes | Yes |
| Open Source | No | Yes |
| Editorial Rating | 4.4/5 | 4.6/5 |
| Categories | Developer Tools, Security | Developer Tools |
| Key Features | Pre-built UI components, Social login, MFA, Organization management, Webhooks | Full PostgreSQL database, Authentication & authorization, Real-time subscriptions, Edge Functions, File storage |
| Free Tier Quality | excellent | excellent |
Pricing Breakdown
Clerk
Free: 10,000 MAUs. Pro: $25/month + $0.02/MAU beyond 10K. Enterprise: custom (SSO, SCIM, SLA).
Supabase
Free: 500MB database, 1GB storage, 50K MAUs. Pro: $25/month (8GB database, 100GB bandwidth, daily backups). Team: $599/month (SOC 2, priority support). Enterprise: custom.
Integration Overlap
Shared Integrations (3)
Next.jsReactStripe
Only in Clerk (7)
RemixGatsbyExpressFastifySupabaseConvexNeon
Only in Supabase (7)
FlutterSwiftKotlinVercelNetlifyPrismaDrizzle ORM
Use Case Fit
Clerk
- * Drop-in authentication UI components
- * User management and profiles
- * Social login (Google, GitHub, etc.)
- * Multi-factor authentication
- * Organization and team management
Supabase
- * Full-stack web application backend
- * Mobile app backend with real-time sync
- * Authentication and user management
- * File storage and image transformations
- * Serverless API development
Clerk
Pros
- + Beautiful pre-built components
- + Free for 10K MAUs
- + Excellent developer experience
- + Fast integration (minutes, not hours)
Cons
- - Vendor lock-in for auth
- - Pricing scales with MAUs
- - Less flexible than Auth0 for custom flows
Supabase
Pros
- + Open source — no vendor lock-in
- + Full PostgreSQL power with a managed experience
- + Generous free tier for side projects
- + Real-time and auth built in from day one
- + Excellent developer documentation
Cons
- - Fewer managed services compared to Firebase
- - Edge Functions still maturing
- - Self-hosting requires significant DevOps knowledge
- - Connection pooling can be tricky at scale
Editorial Verdict
Both tools are evenly matched on price. Clerk excels at drop-in authentication ui components, while Supabase is stronger for full-stack web application backend.
Sarah Chen
Editor-in-Chief