Clerk vs Ory
On the evidence we track, Ory leads this comparison with a composite score of 76/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.
Capabilities
Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for auth & identity software. “-” means undocumented, not absent.
What each one is
The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.
Clerk
A unified platform providing authentication, user profile management, and billing integration through pre-built components and APIs, enabling developers to implement secure user systems without building them from scratch.
Ory
LeaderAn open-source and cloud-based identity platform offering authentication, authorization, and access control for applications and AI agents. Available as self-hosted open-source software, a managed cloud service, or an enterprise license with dedicated support.
Pricing
List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.
Clerk
From $20/month billed annually. 14-day free trial.
- Pro$20/month billed annually with 5 seats included, $12/month per additional seat
- Multifactor Authentication
- Customizable branding
- Seat-based billing
- Unlimited members
Ory
LeaderFrom $770/year. Free Developer tier. Usage-based (aDAU) metered pricing available.
- DeveloperFree
- Production$770/year plus $0.14/aDAU/month
- All top-tier security features
- 1 production environment and 3 staging environments
- Permissions and machine-to-machine tokens
- Growth$9,350/year
- Everything from Production
- Advanced analytics and insights
- 2 production environments and 5 staging environments
- B2B SSO (OIDC only)
- Enterprise (SaaS)Contact sales
- Everything from Growth
- Event firehose to data lake
- Multi-region deployments with data residency
- Volume pricing
- Enterprise integrations for legacy systems
- +4 more
- Enterprise License (Self-Hosted)Contact sales
- Full control of hosting
- Multi-region deployment flexibility
- Custom pricing
- Premium enterprise integrations
- Premium support with SLAs
Platform & deployment
Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.
Integrations
What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.
Clerk
- Google OAuth
- GitHub OAuth
- Google Workspace
- Convex
- MCP
Ory
Leader- Amazon SES
- AWS API Gateway
- Kubernetes
- Ambassador
- Kong
- Splunk
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Clerk or Ory: which one depends on you
A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.
Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works
Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.