Clerk vs Ory: Features, Pricing and User Reviews 2026
Compare features, pricing, reviews, and more to make an informed decision
Clerk
Clerk is a developer-friendly authentication platform with pre-built components, flexible APIs, and admin dashboards for complete user management.
Ory
Ory is an open-source identity and access management platform that provides secure authentication, authorization, and user management for modern applications.
Clerk
Clerk is a developer-friendly authentication platform with pre-built components, flexible APIs, and admin dashboards for complete user management.
Ory
Ory is an open-source identity and access management platform that provides secure authentication, authorization, and user management for modern applications.
Clerk
Pre-built authentication components and user interfaces
20+ social login providers including Google and GitHub
Multi-factor authentication with SMS and authenticator apps
Password authentication with automatic breach detection
Organizations with roles and permissions for teams
Enterprise SSO with SAML and OAuth support
Session management and device tracking
Webhooks and API access for custom integrations
SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance
Free tier with 10,000 monthly active users
Ory
Password, passwordless, and social login options
Fingerprint and face recognition with passkeys
Multi-factor authentication and security codes
Email and phone verification
Single sign-on for businesses
Complete user session management
Permission and role-based access control
OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect support
Open-source with self-hosting option
Enterprise-grade security and compliance
API-first architecture with SDKs
Custom UI or ready-made components
Clerk
Clerk offers flexible pricing to support projects of all sizes. The free plan includes 10,000 monthly active users with all core features, pre-built components, and custom domain support. Users who sign up but never return are completely free.
The Pro plan charges just $0.02 per monthly active user after your first 10,000 free users. Pro includes removing Clerk branding, allowlist and blocklist features, and customizable session duration.
For advanced needs, add-ons cost $100 per month each. The Enhanced Authentication add-on provides multi-factor auth, device tracking, and enterprise SSO. The Enhanced Administration add-on includes user impersonation and audit logs.
Organizations start at $1 per monthly active organization after your first 100 free, with unlimited members per organization in Pro.
Enterprise plans offer custom pricing with 99.99% uptime guarantees, support SLAs, HIPAA compliance, dedicated Slack support, and onboarding assistance. Startup discounts are available through partners like Y Combinator and Stripe Atlas.
Ory
Ory offers several pricing tiers designed for different stages of business growth and deployment preferences.
The Production Plan costs $70 per month and includes all core security features, one production environment plus three staging environments, and support for permissions and machine-to-machine authentication. This plan is ideal for small to medium applications starting their production journey.
The Growth Plan is billed annually at $9,350 per year and adds advanced analytics to understand your user sign-up and login patterns, two production environments with five staging environments, multi-organization support with business single sign-on, guided onboarding assistance, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
For larger organizations, the Enterprise Plan offers custom pricing with additional features including event streaming to your data systems, multi-region hosting with data location control, volume-based pricing discounts, connections to existing systems, flexible API limits, dedicated support with strict guarantees, and 99.99% uptime commitment.
Companies wanting complete control can choose the Enterprise License for self-hosted deployment with custom pricing, premium support, and the ability to run Ory on their own infrastructure worldwide.