Authentication & Authorization · head-to-head
Auth0 vs Stytch
Auth0 (an Okta company) is an identity platform providing hosted login, social and enterprise SSO, and adaptive multi-factor authentication for web, mobile, and API-first applications. Both its Authentication API and Management API are secured exclusively through OAuth 2.0 / OIDC bearer tokens issued via a tenant's /oauth/token endpoint — there is no standalone API-key scheme. It bills per monthly active user, with a free tier for small projects and paid Essentials/Professional/Enterprise plans for scale.
Stytch provides passwordless authentication primitives — email magic links, SMS/WhatsApp OTP, passkeys, and OAuth social login — plus session and user management for consumer and B2B apps. API calls are authenticated with HTTP Basic Auth using a project's project_id as the username and its secret as the password against api.stytch.com, separate from the OAuth2 client-credentials scheme used only by its M2M Connected Apps endpoints. Stytch offers a free tier for early-stage usage alongside usage-based paid plans.
| Auth0 | Stytch | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | OAuth | Basic Auth |
| Pricing | freemium | freemium |
| Formats | JSON | JSON |
| CORS | yes | no |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
Auth0 supports CORS, while Stytch doesn't — pick Auth0 for direct browser calls.