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Clerk vs Hanko

Clerk and Hanko score alike on the AgentReady. They differ on 11 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Clerk. Clerk provides full-stack authentication and user management with products such as Organizations, Billing, and more.

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

Where Clerk is ahead

Clerk 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: authentication documented. Hanko misses it.

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

Where Hanko is ahead

Hanko passes search discoverable, and Clerk 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. Clerk misses it.

And on adopt, self-service signup, free trial or free allowance and fast time to first request. Clerk misses those.

Finally, on operate, structured, predictable output. Clerk misses it.

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, 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 is whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists. Clerk leads 87 to 73. Clerk misses search discoverable; Hanko misses clear product positioning, mcp discoverable.

Understand. Both sit at 23/100 here. Clerk misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, pricing understandable, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints 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. Hanko leads 50 to 48. Clerk 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; Hanko misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, cli available, mcp integration available.

Operate. Hanko leads 47 to 35. Clerk misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified; Hanko misses machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

Clerk does not publish a machine-readable starting price. Hanko starts at $29/month and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

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

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