WorkOS
Shares rank 6 of 8 authentication services by recommenders
Developers praise its flexible auth flows, built-in SAML and SCIM mapping, and generous free tier. Critics report SCIM integrations breaking at times.
Developers praise its flexible auth flows, built-in SAML and SCIM mapping, and generous free tier. Critics report SCIM integrations breaking at times.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 64%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Free tier up to 1M users
“Free up to 1m users, you pay for enterprise features.”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: How Are You Handling Auth in 2026?” “didn't realize how permissive your free tier was”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: How Are You Handling Auth in 2026?” Works for both B2B and B2C
“WorkOS is incredible, even if you don't need any of the "enterprise" features and you're building an entirely B2C app.”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “I used AWS cognito for a startup. I wouldn't do it again” “If you're looking for b2b identity, I'm the founder of WorkOS and we power this for a bunch of apps.”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Okta's NextJS-0auth troubles” Built-in SAML and SCIM mapping
“If you're looking for b2b identity, I'm the founder of WorkOS and we power this for a bunch of apps.”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Okta's NextJS-0auth troubles” “WorkOS has a built-in workflow for all the complex SAML/SCIM attribute mapping.”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “From Supabase to Clerk to Better Auth”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
SCIM integrations have broken
“has messed up SCIM integrations for us/our customers serveral times”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “I used AWS cognito for a startup. I wouldn't do it again” Events API data kept 90 days
“But WorkOS only preserves the events API data for 90 days”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “The Valley of Webhooks” Syncing auth state is buggy
“syncing external auth provider state with your user state is a bug center”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “From Supabase to Clerk to Better Auth” WorkOS links cause problems
“everything works fine except our workOS links”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Domain Health”
Other authentication services people recommend
The four most recommended other authentication services, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Better Auth | 46 | 8 | 85% | 9 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| Ory Hydra | 22 | 2 | 92% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Clerk | 19 | 16 | 54% | 7 | — | — |
| AWS Cognito | 18 | 34 | 35% | 6 | — | — |
| WorkOSThis page | 7 | 4 | 64% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“everything works fine except our workOS links”
“has messed up SCIM integrations for us/our customers serveral times”
“WorkOS is incredible, even if you don't need any of the "enterprise" features and you're building an entirely B2C app.”
“But WorkOS only preserves the events API data for 90 days”
“WorkOS has some cool piping to support this and uses it for their internal version of the same thing”
“I think we have the most advanced RBAC system.”
“syncing external auth provider state with your user state is a bug center”
“WorkOS has a built-in workflow for all the complex SAML/SCIM attribute mapping.”
“I've been a happy camper there”
“MCP auth and feature flags are two feature that got me in. I also like that it's flexible enough for me to write custom logic in auth flow”
“didn't realize how permissive your free tier was”
“Free up to 1m users, you pay for enterprise features.”
“If you're looking for b2b identity, I'm the founder of WorkOS and we power this for a bunch of apps.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.