# Clerk vs Descope

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Descope

| Attribute | Clerk | Descope |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 73.2 (61% (medium)) | 79.3 (63% (medium)) |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | Clerk provides full-stack authentication and user management with prebuilt components for sign-up, sign-in, organization management, and billing. Supports B2B multi-tenancy, social login, passwordless auth, MFA, and enterprise SSO. | Customer and agentic IAM platform with no-code drag-and-drop workflows for authentication, SSO, multi-tenancy, and fine-grained access control. |
| features.capabilities | `{"mfa":true,"oidc":false,"rbac":true,"hosting":"cloud","saml_sso":true,"hosted_ui":"both","open_source":false,"passwordless":true,"social_login":true,"b2b_multi_tenant":true,"passkeys_webauthn":false,"scim_provisioning":false}` | `{"mfa":true,"oidc":true,"rbac":true,"hosting":"cloud","saml_sso":true,"hosted_ui":"both","passwordless":true,"social_login":true,"b2b_multi_tenant":true,"passkeys_webauthn":true,"scim_provisioning":true}` |
| integrations.count | 30 | 50 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"React"},{"name":"Next.js"},{"name":"Expo"},{"name":"Vue"},{"name":"Angular"},{"name":"Svelte"},{"name":"Python"},{"name":"Ruby"},{"name":"Go"},{"name":"Java"},{"name":"C#"},{"name":"PHP"},{"name":"Rust"},{"name":"JavaScript"},{"name":"Nuxt"},{"name":"Remix"},{"name":"Express"},{"name":"Fastify"},{"name":"Koa"},{"name":"Hono"},{"name":"Elysia"},{"name":"Tauri"},{"name":"Astro"},{"name":"SolidJS"},{"name":"React Router"},{"name":"TanStack React"},{"name":"Chrome Extension"},{"name":"Android"},{"name":"iOS"},{"name":"Stripe"}]` | `[{"name":"Twilio"},{"name":"SendGrid"},{"name":"Google"},{"name":"AWS"},{"name":"Azure"},{"name":"Cloudflare"}]` |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US","GB","EU"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":["US","GB"],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"subscription","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Hobby","summary":"Free tier","features":["Up to 3 dashboard seats","Unlimited applications","50,000 MRU limit per app","Up to 5 user impersonations","APIs and prebuilt UIs","Custom domain","7 day session lifetime","Application logs 1 day retention","M2M tokens limited per month","Up to 3 social connections"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"No credit card required. Everything you need to start building.","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"users":"50,000 MRU/app","applications":"unlimited","impersonations":"5/month","dashboard_seats":"3","social_connections":"3"}},{"free":false,"name":"Pro","summary":"$20/mo billed annually ($25/mo monthly)","features":["Everything in Hobby","50,000 MRU included per app","Unlimited social connections","1 Enterprise connection included (additional $75/mo)","Remove Clerk branding","Multi-factor authentication (MFA)","Satellite domains ($10/mo each)","Custom session lifetime","Application logs 7 day retention","SMS Authentication available","M2M tokens included"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","note":"billed annually","amount":20,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"fixed","note":"billed monthly","amount":25,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"MRU"},"kind":"metered","range":"50,001-100,000/mo","amount":0.02,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Scale with full-featured authentication.","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"users":"50,000 MRU/app included","applications":"unlimited","dashboard_seats":"3","social_connections":"unlimited"}},{"free":false,"name":"Business","summary":"$250/mo billed annually ($300/mo monthly)","features":["Everything in Pro","10 dashboard seats included (additional $20/mo each)","SOC2 Report","Enhanced dashboard roles","Priority support","Application logs 30 day retention"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","note":"billed annually","amount":250,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"fixed","note":"billed monthly","amount":300,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Tackle compliance and growing teams.","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"users":"50,000 MRU/app included","applications":"unlimited","dashboard_seats":"10 included"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing. Contact sales.","features":["Everything in Business","Annual committed use discounts","99.99% Uptime SLA","Enterprise SSO for workspace","Premium support SLA + dedicated Slack channel","Application logs custom retention","Log sink destinations (stream to SIEM)","HIPAA compliance available with BAA","Onboarding & migration support","Custom security questionnaires"],"commitment":"annual","description":"Tailored solutions and guarantees.","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"B2B Authentication Enhanced","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":100,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"fixed","note":"billed annually","amount":85,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Administration Enhanced","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":100,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"fixed","note":"billed annually","amount":85,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Billing","components":[{"of":"billing_volume","kind":"percentage","rate":0.7}]}],"summary":"Free plan available. Paid plans from $20/mo annual ($25/mo monthly). Usage-based overage pricing for additional users.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://clerk.com","retrievedAt":"2026-08-05T14:06:44.374Z","startingPrice":{"amount":0.02,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free Forever","summary":"Free Forever, 99% SLA","features":["All auth methods","RBAC","MFA","Session management","Admin widgets","Third-party connectors","No watermark"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For hobbyists, tinkerers, and solo builders","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"test_users":"5","m2m_exchanges":"10,000","sso_connections":"3","federated_apps_oidc":"1","monthly_active_users":"7,500","monthly_active_tokens":"2,000","monthly_active_tenants":"10","monthly_active_consents":"2,000"}},{"free":false,"name":"Pro","summary":"Starts at $249/mo billed annually, 99.99% SLA","features":["Custom domain","Google One Tap","Custom OIDC","SSO for third-party apps","Self-service SSO","CI/CD integration","Localization","SOC 2 reports"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":249,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For early-stage startups","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"test_users":"100","m2m_exchanges":"50,000","federated_apps":"2 (SAML/OIDC)","sso_connections":"5","monthly_active_users":"10,000","monthly_active_tokens":"5,000","monthly_active_tenants":"35","monthly_active_consents":"5,000"}},{"free":false,"name":"Growth","summary":"Starts at $799/mo billed annually","features":["Bot protection","1M anonymous users","Zero-downtime SSO migration","SCIM provisioning","Admin portal","Fine-grained authorization","Multi-region residency","HIPAA BAA","FedRAMP High"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":799,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For growth-stage startups and scaleups","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"test_users":"500","m2m_exchanges":"100,000","federated_apps":"Unlimited (SAML/OIDC)","sso_connections":"10","monthly_active_users":"25,000","monthly_active_tokens":"10,000","monthly_active_tenants":"100","monthly_active_consents":"10,000"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing","features":["Tiered discounts","Premium support","Dedicated CS engineer","Custom deployments","Unlimited test/anonymous users"],"description":"For large enterprises","contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free tier included. Pro from $249/mo, Growth from $799/mo (both annual). Usage overages: $0.05/MAU, $1/tenant, $50/SSO connection, $2 per 1k M2M exchanges.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.descope.com","retrievedAt":"2026-08-03T22:29:59.217Z","startingPrice":{"amount":249,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | low | high |
| pricing.starting_gbp | 0.02 | 249 |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.99 | 99.99 |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.fedramp | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | yes |
| security.iso27001 | - | yes |
| security.soc2 | yes | yes |

## Capabilities (Auth & Identity Software)

| Capability | Clerk | Descope |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud only | Cloud only |
| **Methods** |  |  |
| Social login | ✓ | ✓ |
| Passwordless | ✓ | ✓ |
| Passkeys / WebAuthn | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multi-factor auth | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Enterprise** |  |  |
| SAML SSO | ✓ | ✓ |
| SCIM provisioning | ✗ | ✓ |
| B2B / multi-tenancy | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Standards** |  |  |
| OpenID Connect provider | ✗ | ✓ |
| **Delivery** |  |  |
| Hosted UI | Both | Both |
| **Access** |  |  |
| RBAC | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Self-hostable OSS core | ✗ | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-08-07T00:01:56.128Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*