Clerk vs Keycloak
Clerk and Keycloak are both security & identity tools. Clerk is aimed at developers, while Keycloak is aimed at enterprise and developers. Both have a free plan.
| Pricing | Freemium · $25 | Open source |
| Starting price | $25/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers | Enterprise, Developers |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | US · 2019 | US · 2014 |
| 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 Keycloak if
Organizations needing self-hosted enterprise IAM.
- Free and open source
- Enterprise-grade features
- Full control over identity data
Look elsewhere if: Startups wanting simple hosted auth (Clerk, Auth0).
Clerk vs Keycloak 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
Keycloak
- Open source$0Apache 2.0, self-hosted
- Red Hat buildCustomCommercial support subscription
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
Keycloak · Key features
- SSO via OIDC and SAML
- User federation with LDAP/AD
- Identity brokering and social login
- MFA and password policies
- Fine-grained authorization
- Admin and account consoles
Cons
- Operationally complex
- UI and theming are dated
- Upgrades require care
Clerk vs Keycloak: FAQ
Do Clerk and Keycloak have a free plan?
Yes, both Clerk and Keycloak have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.