Clerk vs Cloudflare
Clerk and Cloudflare are both security & identity tools. Clerk is aimed at developers, while Cloudflare is aimed at developers and enterprise. Cloudflare costs less, from $5/mo versus $25/mo for Clerk. Both have a free plan.
Drop-in authentication and user management
CDN, DNS, WAF and edge platform
| Pricing | Freemium · $25 | Freemium · $5 |
| Starting price | $25/mo | $5/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers | Developers, Enterprise |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | US · 2019 | US · 2009 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Clerk if
React and Next.js teams who want production auth with great UX immediately.
- Beautiful components save weeks of work
- Generous free tier
- Organizations and B2B features built in
Look elsewhere if: Teams requiring full ownership of auth data (Better Auth, Keycloak) or non-JS stacks.
Choose Cloudflare if
Anyone running a website, and developers who want edge compute and cheap storage.
- Industry-leading free tier
- Zero egress R2 undercuts S3 dramatically
- Global performance and security
Look elsewhere if: Teams needing the full breadth of managed services from a hyperscaler in one place.
Clerk vs Cloudflare pricing
Clerk
- Hobby$050,000 monthly retained users per app, 3 dashboard seats
- Pro$25/mo$20/mo billed annually; 50k MRUs, then from $0.02/MRU
- Business$300/mo$250/mo billed annually; 10 dashboard seats
- EnterpriseCustomAnnual billing; 99.99% uptime SLA, volume discounts
Cloudflare
- Free$0CDN, DNS, DDoS, Universal SSL
- Pro$25/domain/mo$20/mo billed annually; image optimization, 225 rules
- Business$250/domain/mo$200/mo billed annually; 100% uptime SLA, PCI DSS
- EnterpriseCustomContract; 24/7 phone support
- Workers Paid$5/moMinimum monthly charge per account; usage above included
Clerk · Key features
- Prebuilt UI components for auth and user profile
- Email, password, passkeys, OTP and 20+ social providers
- Organizations, roles and permissions (B2B)
- MFA, bot protection and session management
- Clerk Billing for subscriptions and feature gating
- SDKs for Next.js, React, Remix, Expo, Astro and more
Cons
- User data lives with a third party
- Per-user (MRU) cost grows with scale
- Enhanced features (SAML, MFA) cost extra
Cloudflare · Key features
- CDN, DNS, SSL and DDoS protection on every plan
- WAF, bot management and rate limiting
- Workers edge functions, Pages hosting and Workers AI
- R2 object storage with no egress fees
- D1, KV, Queues, Durable Objects and Vectorize
- Zero Trust access, tunnels and email security
Cons
- Product sprawl can confuse
- Some services less mature than AWS/GCP
- Support on lower plans is limited
Clerk vs Cloudflare: FAQ
Which is cheaper, Clerk or Cloudflare?
Cloudflare starts at $5/mo and Clerk at $25/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Do Clerk and Cloudflare have a free plan?
Yes, both Clerk and Cloudflare have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.