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Better Auth vs Hanko

Better Auth scores higher on the AgentReady, 57/100 against 48/100. They differ on 13 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Better Auth. A framework-agnostic, universal authentication and authorization framework for TypeScript.

Hanko. Hanko is an open-source authentication and user management platform for modern web and mobile apps.

Where Better Auth is ahead

Better Auth passes clear product positioning and mcp discoverable, and Hanko does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: structured api reference, authentication documented and limits / constraints documented. Hanko misses those.

And on adopt, cli available and mcp integration available. Hanko misses those.

Where Hanko is ahead

Hanko passes clear canonical domain and llms-full.txt / full agent docs, and Better Auth does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds adopt: fast time to first request and copyable quickstart. Better Auth misses those.

And on operate, structured, predictable output and observable execution. Better Auth misses those.

What neither does

Both fail openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover. Better Auth leads 87 to 73. Better Auth misses clear canonical domain, llms-full.txt / full agent docs; Hanko misses clear product positioning, mcp discoverable.

Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. Better Auth leads 54 to 23. Better Auth misses openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented; Hanko misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented.

Adopt. Better Auth leads 62 to 50. Better Auth misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart; Hanko misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, cli available, mcp integration available.

Operate. Hanko leads 47 to 24. Better Auth misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution, agent compatibility verified; Hanko misses machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

Better Auth starts at $0/month and has a free tier. Hanko starts at $29/month and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

Better Auth clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: Better Auth and Hanko. Alternatives to each: Better Auth, Hanko.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["better-auth", "hanko"]}