Compare

Better Auth vs Stytch

Better Auth scores higher on the AgentReady, 57/100 against 51/100. They differ on 12 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.

Stytch. The identity platform for humans & AI agents.

Where Better Auth is ahead

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

It also holds understand: pricing understandable and limits / constraints documented. Stytch misses those.

And on adopt, self-service signup, free trial or free allowance, cli available and mcp integration available. Stytch misses those.

Where Stytch is ahead

Stytch 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: copyable quickstart. Better Auth misses it.

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, fast time to first request, 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. Both sit at 87/100 here. Better Auth misses clear canonical domain, llms-full.txt / full agent docs; Stytch misses mcp discoverable.

Understand. Better Auth leads 54 to 38. Better Auth misses openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented; Stytch misses openapi / spec quality, pricing understandable, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented.

Adopt is whether an agent can get a key and make its first successful call without a human in the loop. Better Auth leads 62 to 29. Better Auth misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart; Stytch misses self-service signup, no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, free trial or free allowance, fast time to first request, cli available, mcp integration available.

Operate. Stytch leads 50 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; Stytch 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. Stytch does not publish one.

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 Stytch. Alternatives to each: Better Auth, Stytch.

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