Show HN: Stack, an open-source Clerk/Firebase Auth alternative

ohans

> Despite how crucial it is, it's hard to find a service that has all the features you need for a successful product.

> That's why we built Stack.

I’m not convinced this is a strong USP. One could make a decent argument “Stack” doesn’t have “all” the features (yet) - I’ve seen the roadmap.

Firebase, Superbase etc. arguably have more features.

In a nutshell, I think it might be better to have that paragraph really drive home the USP of the product e.g., open source accountability, fairer pricing model etc.

Those are strong tells, instead of the “all the features” narrative. That’s a hard battle to win :)

Regardless, awesome work! And congrats on the launch

awinter-py

feels like if keycloak had been slightly better 10 years ago, backend architecture would be way less complicated and more standardized

auth system that worked well with static file buckets would cut like 40% of backend DB / server needs

prng2021

Can you summarize what differentiates this from Supabase and Supertokens?

aitchnyu

Tangential, but is anybody else holding on to serverside user management and sessions for their monolith? With an external auth provider, my backend would be making a http call for verifying each incoming request. We make drastic changes to backend user management (one provider says you dont need to maintain a users table) and frontend framework (Firebase is a pain for backend, Stack provides only React components).

Only Logto and Hanko seem to offer sane "I can vouch [email protected] logged in, create a user and start their session in Django if you please" workflow that can beat vendor lockin.

pratio

If you're looking for a system that has more features, is user friendly, a nice admin ui and easy deployments compared to Keycloak. Please give https://goauthentik.io/ a shot. Not affiliated in any way, just a very happy user.

It has

-an admin UI

- Supports (LDAP, SAML, OAUTH, social logins)

- MFA, Passkeys

- Application access based on user groups etc

catapart

This looks great! I was just looking in to Clerk as a solution for user management, so this is definitely a timely product, for me. And it looks to be a very easy integration because I could start out with the hosted version and then move to self hosting. I really like that feature!

Unfortunately, my project is not using jsx, so I can't really implement anything that relies on it. I would love to check this out, if I can use it without Next.js or any kind of jsx compatability. But, until then, it's not something useful for any of my use cases.

roamerz

Do you have federated LDAP anywhere on your roadmap? Are some features going to be Enterprise only eventually? We are currently evaluating Zitadel. How do you Stack(:D) up against them?

sneak

Professional opinion: I think a user management system without 2FA on day 1 is a nonstarter. It is, to me, the same as if it didn't have a password field.

WolfOliver

What would be the benefit of using Stack compared to one of the existing OpenId Connect Providers like Auth0, Okta, Keycloak, Ory... ?

zzzzzzzzzz10

What would be a standout feature compared to other open source authN/authZ solutions like Ory or Keycloak?

officialchicken

React/Next only

alexchamberlain

AGPL and MIT licenses are very (extremely?) different. What's the thinking there?

alexashka

Is this not a solved problem in the frontend/backend world? Are there not plug and play libraries for auth on the backend and frontend for every popular language?

nik2303

Congrats on the launch!

I have a question - what if I want to integrate Stack with React and NestJs app? I couldn't find any docs for a backend authentication.

Lucasoato

Seems really cool! Good luck and have fun :) I see that you list 2FA and SSO in the roadmap for the next weeks, those are definitely needed for enterprise.

getcrunk

Please address support for vanilla js/framework agnostic and what differentiates from Supabase and supertokens on ur site

spxneo

Would love to see compatibility with existing Clerk integration! Then I could stop paying Clerk and pay you haha

will it adapt to PrimeReact

fayazara

I was literally discussing why a service like clerk should be open source a few days ago. This is such perfect timing.

OccamsMirror

Looks great! I’ve always felt the existing open source solutions are clunky and confusing.

Any plans to create components for Flutter?

claytongulick

This looks cool, but I just don't understand why anyone would choose to do UI components for a project like this in Next/React instead of vanilla web components with a standard REST api, which can be used anywhere by anything.

Or, honestly, why anyone would chose to use react server components at all.

I was just kicking the tires on cal.com and saw the same thing - they did all their stuff with the react server components and next.js. And then? Well, it turns out that they needed an API, because apps do.

So they ended up reimplementing most of the logic in a RESTful API anyway.

I just SMH.

jbk

What I really want is the next step: the one where it manages user groups and roles. :)

WolfOliver

I like the docusaurus theme, you've build it yourself?

johndevor

Looks great. Would love a redwood integration!

John23832

My first thought is why not supabase?

compootr

what's different from pocketbase?

mooreds

Congratulations and welcome to the auth party!

seper8

Another product name impossible to find using google :D

On a more useful note... I kind of wonder what the target audience for this is. Big companies? Dont want to roll their own auth. Startups? Dont want to roll their own auth...

dboreham

Because nothing was already called "stack"?