Auth0

Overview

Auth0 launched in 2013 as a developer-first identity service and was acquired by Okta in 2021, where it remains the customer-identity (CIAM) product, distinct from Okta's workforce platform. It is the reference platform for engineering teams that want to add login to an app quickly and customize deeply, and it carries the largest mindshare in the category.

What it is good at

Developer experience is the moat: excellent SDKs and quickstarts across every major language and framework, thorough documentation, and broad protocol coverage (OIDC, SAML, OAuth, WebAuthn/passkeys). Actions, its serverless extensibility model, lets teams customize login flows in code without forking the platform. It handles both B2C and B2B (organizations, enterprise connections), supports MFA and passwordless well, and offers a dedicated private cloud for stricter requirements. Note that Auth0 Private Cloud is a managed service on AWS or Azure, single-tenant and isolated but run by Auth0, not software you host yourself.

Where it falls short

Per-MAU economics are the recurring complaint: pricing climbs steeply with scale, B2B and enterprise features sit in higher tiers, and list price is rarely what large customers pay, so plan to negotiate. Governance and lifecycle are lighter than a dedicated workforce or IGA tool, since that is not its job. Some buyers also weigh the Okta ownership and the platform's history of security incidents, which makes tenant hardening a real task.

Pricing

Published and per monthly active user, with separate B2C and B2B price ladders. List prices on auth0.com/pricing, checked 2026-11-05:

Prices rise with MAU bands: B2C Essentials is $700 a month at 10,000 MAU and B2B Professional is $1,200 a month at 2,500 MAU, and usage between bands bills at the next band up. The free plan caps out at 1 custom domain, 5 organizations, 1 enterprise connection, 1,000 machine-to-machine authentications and 1 day of log retention. The page contradicts itself in places, so confirm in writing: Essentials highlights list a machine-to-machine token add-on while the feature tables say none is available below Professional, and B2C Essentials lists Enterprise MFA as both included and an add-on. Model costs at your real MAU and feature set with the TCO calculator.

Best for, and who should look elsewhere

Choose Auth0 when developer experience and protocol breadth drive the decision and you want one platform for B2C and B2B. For B2B-only enterprise readiness consider WorkOS; for the lowest cost and self-hosting consider open-source options like Keycloak; for the best React drop-in UX consider Clerk.

Bottom line

The developer-favorite CIAM with the deepest SDK and protocol coverage. Watch the per-MAU bill as you scale.