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Cerbos vs SuperTokens

SuperTokens scores higher on the AgentReady, 54/100 against 46/100. They differ on 7 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Cerbos. Authorization management platform for applications, APIs, AI agents, MCP servers, services, and workloads.

SuperTokens. Open source user authentication platform that helps developers build fast, maintain control, and reduce costs.

Where Cerbos is ahead

Cerbos passes observable execution, and SuperTokens does not. That is operate, whether an agent can run against it in production and recover when a call fails.

Where SuperTokens is ahead

SuperTokens passes clear canonical domain, and Cerbos does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: authentication documented and pricing understandable. Cerbos misses those.

And on adopt, no mandatory sales call, free trial or free allowance and cli available. Cerbos misses those.

What neither does

Both fail structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented, self-service signup, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, structured, predictable output, 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. SuperTokens leads 100 to 93. Cerbos misses clear canonical domain; SuperTokens misses nothing.

Understand. SuperTokens leads 31 to 15. Cerbos misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, pricing understandable, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; SuperTokens misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, 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. SuperTokens leads 60 to 40. Cerbos 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; SuperTokens misses self-service signup, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request.

Operate. Cerbos leads 35 to 24. Cerbos misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified; SuperTokens misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

Cerbos does not publish a machine-readable starting price. SuperTokens starts at $0.02/MAU and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

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

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["cerbos", "supertokens"]}