Top all-time · #2615
Clerk
Company blog · clerk.com/blogprogrammingwebsecurity
Clerk is the company blog at clerk.com, writing about programming, web and security. Since 2023, 28 different Hacker News readers have linked it 32 times, most often “Clerk announces new auth pricing with 10k free MAUs”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-15, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (18) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link clerk.com, a hosted user-authentication product, mostly for its pricing, free tier, SDKs, docs and changelog. The comments do not evaluate any of its writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 18 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The easiest way to add authentication and user management to your application. Purpose-built for React, Next.js, Remix, and “The Modern Web”.
Most-linked posts?
- Clerk announces new auth pricing with 10k free MAUs4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-11-30
- /4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-04-27
- Clerk System Outage Postmortem – 19th Feb 20263 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-02-21
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-04-25
- Updated Pricing: 10k MAUs Free, and a New "Pro Plan"2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-12-09
What Hacker News says?
What is this "clerk" library he used at this timestamp to tell him what to do? https://youtu.be/LCEmiRjPEtQ?si=XaC-oOMUxXp0DRU0&t=1991 Gemini found it via screenshot or context: https://clerk.com/ This is what he used for login on MenuGen: https://karpathy.bearblog.dev/vibe-coding-menugen/
Comment linking /
on “Andrej Karpathy: Software in the era of AI [video]”Submitted Mitigating OAuth's recently discovered Open Response Type vulnerability as a story · 7 points
HN discussionCofounder of Clerk here - we definitely want free plan users to be aware of this limitation - any suggestions to improve visibility? On https://clerk.com/pricing , “Customizable session duration” is listed as a primary benefit of the pro plan, and in the chart we show that the free plan is “Fixed to 7 days” Apologies we failed to make it clear before you started, that’s definitely not intended. We thought this was a…
Comment linking /pricing
on “Launch HN: Stack Auth (YC S24) – An Open-Source Auth0/Clerk Alternative”Submitted Combining the benefits of session tokens and JWTs as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe Vercel-like auth company Vercel's CEO invested in default recommends middleware for protecting routes: https://clerk.com/docs/references/nextjs/clerk-middleware You wouldn't get a user's info, but you'd get free reign to explore every page of a product
Comment linking /docs/references/nextjs/clerk-middleware
on “Next.js version 15.2.3 has been released to address a security vulnerability”Submitted Critical security vulnerability in clerk/nextjs as a story · 3 points
HN discussionNot to mention the same critical vulnerability in Clerk's Next.js SDK, which should've been a wake up call. https://clerk.com/changelog/2024-02-02#:~:text=Our%20solutio...
Comment linking /changelog/2024-02-02
on “Next.js version 15.2.3 has been released to address a security vulnerability”Submitted Clerk System Outage Postmortem – 19th Feb 2026 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionClerk employee here - it's certainly the case that a lot of our users are JS ecosystem users, which is why those SDKs have received extra attention. That being said, I do want to note that we have greatly expanded the number of SDKs that we offer over the past year or so. I'm not sure which framework you were using when you tried it out, but we may have better support for it now! You can see all our supported SDKs i…
Comment linking /docs
on “Comparing Auth from Supabase, Firebase, Auth.js, Ory, Clerk and Others”Submitted Client Trust: Clerk's free credential stuffing killer as a story · 2 points
HN discussionCofounder of Clerk here - we dramatically lowered our prices starting December 2023: https://clerk.com/blog/new-pricing-plans 10,000 MAUs are now included in every plan. We also now offer "First Day Free", so if a user churns in their first 24 hours after signing up, they are never counted as active. For GenAI, this has led to 60-70% of sign ups never being charged as active users.
Comment linking /blog/new-pricing-plans
on “Comparing Auth from Supabase, Firebase, Auth.js, Ory, Clerk and Others”Submitted Host multiple Clerk apps on the same domain as a story · 2 points
HN discussionRecommend using service like clerk to make signup/in easy. ( https://clerk.com/pricing ). Free for first 10k users.
Comment linking /pricing
on “Show HN: A New Way to Learn Languages”Submitted Refactoring Stripe's API for front end access as a story · 2 points
HN discussionWe do now support this, as of late august! https://clerk.com/changelog/2024-08-20-custom-oauth-provider...
Comment linking /changelog/2024-08-20-custom-oauth-providers
on “Ask HN: What type of Auth are you using on your side projects?”Submitted Postmortem: Clerk System Outage as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI know the clerk folks a bit. They have a nice generous free tier ( https://clerk.com/pricing ). I believe they don't fully support OAuth/OIDC, which may or may not be a problem based on what you are trying to solve. Any particular strengths or challenges of their approach that you've found?
Comment linking /pricing
on “Ask HN: What type of Auth are you using on your side projects?”Submitted Postmortem: Clerk System Outage (February 19, 2026) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionLock in is definitely a valid concern, I emailed customer support and they replied with this: Certainly understandable to worry about lock-in! We do try and make data exports as easy as possible. You can use our Backend API directly to retrieve all data for your users except for passwords: https://clerk.com/docs/reference/backend-api/tag/Users#opera... If you need encrypted passwords in the export, you can contact o…
Comment linking /docs/reference/backend-api/tag/Users
on “Ask HN: What type of Auth are you using on your side projects?”Submitted Updated Pricing: 10k MAUs Free, and a New "Pro Plan" as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI’ve been using https://clerk.com . Not needing to build authentication / the UI / … as well as not worrying about hosting it myself has been nice.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What type of Auth are you using on your side projects?”Submitted Clerk announces new auth pricing with 10k free MAUs as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThey have. https://clerk.com/ is an example that I have been looking to use lately
Comment linking /
on “Why is OAuth still hard in 2023?”Submitted Clerk Webhooks: Getting Started as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYou're conflating authentication and authorization. Clerk is an authentication provider for the most part, it concerns itself with telling you who the user is. Based on that your business logic should be able to determine what they are entitled to do. They offer a Org/Role based RBAC but since you're doing something different I'd just scrap it entirely and roll your own authorization flow, they have a guide that'll…
Comment linking /docs/guides/secure/basic-rbac
on “From Supabase to Clerk to Better Auth”Submitted Clerk Raises $15M Series A as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm thrilled to announce the launch of my first open-source project and Hacker News post: JoblessDev! This platform is tailored for current CS students seeking internships and recent graduates looking for full-time roles, focusing on opportunities that require 0-3 years of experience. Here’s what makes JoblessDev stand out: Dynamic Search Capabilities: Easily filter job listings by terms, companies, and states. Time…
Comment linking /
on “JoblessDev: New Open-Source CS Job Platform for Students and Recent Grads”We actually have a huge initiative at Clerk with what we're calling "Elements" which gives a you "radix-like" way to build up the UIs, for significantly easier customization - especially when you're trying to go completely custom. The default modals will always be easier to use, and we're simultaneously working on getting better customization there. Here's an example building a "Sign up" modal in the shadcn style. h…
Comment linking /docs/elements/examples/shadcn-ui
on “Show HN: Tech Stack for Solo SaaS Developers”I didn't get the change to customize the default and built-in components from Clerk. So, it's hard for me to share any experience. But, I know you can do little customization using https://clerk.com/docs/components/customization/overview and play with CSS and Tailwind CSS. Maybe, for complex customization, it's preferable to not use the pre-built components and build it yourself. Currently, I just feel the default U…
Comment linking /docs/components/customization/overview
on “Show HN: Tech Stack for Solo SaaS Developers”Looking at the website, it's hard for me to tell that this is for stock images rather than stock markets. I think you are intentionally playing the double meaning but it can be confusing. Also, the web console has some warnings/errors you should be aware of: - Clerk: Clerk has been loaded with development keys. Development instances have strict usage limits and should not be used when deploying your application to p…
Comment linking /docs/deployments/overview
on “Show HN: Microstock.pro – AI-powered analytics for Adobe Stock contributors”
