Clerk vs Ory: which fits your team shape
A renewal, a change in Clerk pricing or a data control requirement is usually what starts this comparison, but the choice between Clerk and Ory turns on four factors: how much login UI your team can build, how much you need to shape the identity schema, what SSO your customers will demand, and whether Ory's enterprise license features are required. Clerk's prebuilt components fit a small frontend-led team that wants sign-in, sign-up, profile and organization screens working quickly and is content to accept Clerk's data model. Ory fits a team with backend and security capacity that wants to own the login experience and the identity schema, since Ory Kratos is API-first and expects you to build the login and account screens yourself. Start by counting the UI work. List every screen Clerk currently provides in your application, including password reset, email verification, MFA enrollment, passkey prompts and organization switching, then estimate who on your team will build and maintain each one. Next, write down the user attributes and tenant structures your product needs. Kratos lets you define your own identity schema, which matters if you store custom traits or have account types that do not map to Clerk's user and organization objects. Confirm with your architects whether that flexibility outweighs the cost of owning the schema migrations yourself. Then check SSO. If enterprise customers only need SAML or OIDC connections, confirm whether you need organization login, SCIM directory sync and multi-tenancy. The Ory Kratos README lists SCIM, SAML, organization login and CAPTCHAs as enterprise features not available in the open source version, and the Ory Enterprise License page describes what the paid build adds, including Kratos multi-tenancy and organizations and the Hydra ROPC grant. Ask Ory for a written list of which features your product needs, and whether your deployment can tolerate occasional upgrade downtime and delayed CVE patches on the open source build.
Which scenarios favor Clerk and which favor Ory
This table maps common team situations to the platform that usually fits better, with the condition that drives the choice. Read each row against your own constraints, and treat the enterprise license column as the point where Ory's paid features come into play.
| Scenario | Better fit | Condition that drives the choice |
|---|---|---|
| Small team shipping a web app quickly | Clerk | Prebuilt sign-in, sign-up and account components reduce the UI you build, and no self-hosted service needs running at launch. |
| Custom login and onboarding flow | Ory | Kratos is API-first, so your team builds every login, registration and recovery screen. Choose Ory when the flow must match your product, not a component library. |
| Custom identity schema | Ory | Kratos lets you define identity traits in your own schema. Confirm the exact trait and migration model against the Kratos documentation before committing. |
| Your own OAuth2 and OIDC provider | Ory | Hydra is an OpenID Certified OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect server that sits beside your own user store. Clerk issues tokens for its hosted service, so you cannot run the provider yourself. |
| Organization login or SAML SSO for customers | Depends on the enterprise license | SAML, SCIM, organization login and multi-tenancy are Ory enterprise features under the Ory Enterprise License, so budget for that license if these are required. Clerk offers them as hosted features with per-connection fees. |
| Team with no appetite for building UI | Clerk | If your engineers would rather not own login screens, error states and account recovery, the hosted components are the lower-effort path. |
| Self-hosting required for regulated data | Ory | Clerk is a hosted service. Ory's open-source components run in your own infrastructure, with support and CVE patch timing coming from the Ory Enterprise License if you need guaranteed patching. |
| Evaluation or development only | Ory open source | Ory states that open source fits evaluation and development, where occasional upgrade downtime is acceptable and guaranteed CVE patching is not required. |
How much UI you build with Clerk and with Ory
With Clerk, frontend developers mount prebuilt components for sign-in, sign-up, user profile and organization management, then adjust appearance through theme settings. The component set covers the common paths, so most of the frontend work goes into wiring session state into routes and protecting pages. With Ory Kratos, the same developers build the screens themselves. Kratos is API-first and exposes self-service flows for login, registration, recovery, verification and account settings, and the frontend renders whatever fields and messages those flows return. Effort depends on how many flows you support, how many identifiers and factors you offer, and how closely the screens must match your design system.
- Prebuilt versus custom screens: Clerk components render the standard flows out of the box, while Kratos requires a custom UI for each flow.
- Flow state handling: Kratos flows carry state, errors and required fields that your UI must read and display correctly.
- Passkeys and MFA prompts: Adding passkeys, TOTP enrollment and step-up prompts means new screens and error paths in Kratos.
- Design system fit: Clerk offers appearance customization, while Kratos places no visual constraints on your components.
- Ongoing maintenance: Every screen you build becomes code your team must test and update.
Before comparing, ask your frontend lead to list every auth screen your product needs at launch and mark which ones Clerk already provides.
Platform and backend engineers decide where the identity APIs run and how the login UI talks to them. Clerk runs as a hosted service, so backend work centers on verifying session tokens and syncing user records into your own database. Ory Kratos and Ory Hydra run inside your infrastructure, which moves database operations, TLS termination, high availability, upgrades and the backend-for-frontend layer onto your team. Kratos stores identities in SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL or CockroachDB, and Hydra handles OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect flows that your user management system must back with login and consent logic.
- Hosting responsibility: Clerk operates the identity service, while Ory deployments are run by your team or a partner under your environment.
- Login and consent services: Hydra delegates login and consent to your own application, so someone must build and secure that service.
- Database choice: Kratos supports four database engines, and the choice affects backup, scaling and operational skills.
- Upgrades and CVE response: Open-source Kratos and Hydra require your team to track releases and patch on its own schedule, and Ory notes that its enterprise license adds guaranteed CVE patching.
- Integration surface: Confirm how session cookies or tokens flow between your frontend, your APIs and Kratos.
Check whether your platform team has capacity to run and patch identity services before you assume the backend work matches Clerk's hosted model.
Product and design owners feel the difference in the user journey and the brand. Clerk's components keep sign-in consistent across products with limited design work, and organization screens come with the component set. With Ory, every step in the journey is a design decision: field order, error copy, recovery wording, verification prompts and the handling of expired or invalid flows. Organization and enterprise login are also a product question. Ory states that SCIM, SAML, organization login and CAPTCHAs are enterprise features outside the open-source version, so your roadmap should separate the flows you can build from those that depend on a license.
- Journey ownership: Ory leaves copy, layout and sequencing to your product and design teams.
- Brand consistency: Clerk themes apply across its components, while Ory requires a design system that your team maintains.
- Organization flows: Multi-tenant screens such as invitations and role selection must be designed for Ory, while Clerk offers them as components.
- Enterprise-only features: SAML, SCIM and organization login in Ory depend on the Ory Enterprise License, which affects what you can promise customers.
- Accessibility and localization: Your team is responsible for accessibility testing and translated messages on every custom screen.
Ask product and design to review the launch auth journey in both models and to flag any screen that must match a regulated or customer-specific standard.
Clerk vs Ory capabilities side by side
This table compares Clerk's hosted, component-based login with the self-hosted Ory components, row by row. Cells marked as to be confirmed with Clerk need a written answer from Clerk before you rely on them. Ory's open-source core is Apache-2.0 licensed, and the enterprise features in the last row are the ones to price against your requirements.
| Capability | Clerk | Ory (self-hosted open source) |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting and licensing | Hosted SaaS service with plans; confirm hosting regions and contract terms with Clerk | Kratos, Hydra, Keto, Oathkeeper and Polis are Apache-2.0 and run in your own infrastructure |
| Login methods | Passwords, passkeys, social sign-in and MFA through prebuilt flows; confirm the full list with Clerk | Passwords, passwordless codes, passkeys, social sign-in and TOTP multi-factor authentication in Kratos |
| UI approach | Prebuilt drop-in components for sign-in, sign-up and account screens | API-first; your team builds the login and account UI against Kratos headless APIs |
| Identity schema flexibility | User fields and metadata are set within Clerk's data model; confirm custom attribute limits with Clerk | Kratos identity schemas are defined by your team and can be changed to fit your user model |
| OAuth2 and OIDC | Clerk handles its own session and token flows; confirm OAuth2 provider support with Clerk | Ory Hydra is an OpenID Certified OAuth 2.0 server and OpenID Connect provider that works with your existing user system through headless APIs |
| Permissions | Organization roles built into Clerk; confirm fine-grained permission modeling with Clerk | Ory Keto is a Zanzibar-based permission server supporting ACL, RBAC and more |
| SAML and SCIM | Enterprise SSO connections and directory sync are priced per connection; confirm terms with Clerk | SAML, SCIM and organization login in Kratos are enterprise features; Ory Polis provides SAML and OIDC SSO with SCIM directory sync under Apache-2.0 |
| Database options | Managed by Clerk; not user-selectable | Kratos supports SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL and CockroachDB, so your team picks and runs the database |
| Enterprise features and support | Support tiers and SLAs set by Clerk's plans; confirm with Clerk | Ory Enterprise License adds Kratos multi-tenancy and organizations, the Hydra ROPC grant, 24/7 support SLAs and timely CVE patches; Hydra and Kratos v26.2.0 were released March 20, 2026 |
How Hydra separates OAuth2 and OIDC from the user store
Ory Hydra issues tokens and leaves the user store to you. Hydra is an OpenID Certified OAuth 2.0 server and OpenID Connect provider, but it does not hold passwords or profiles. When a client starts a login, Hydra redirects the browser to a login endpoint and a consent endpoint that your own application serves, and those screens call Hydra's headless APIs to accept or reject each step. The user records live in Ory Kratos or in another store your team controls, while Hydra owns the authorization codes, access tokens, refresh tokens and client registrations. The practical consequence is that you can see and change each piece separately, and a Hydra upgrade does not touch your user data.
This split helps when you issue tokens to your own apps, partner systems or third-party developers and need to decide what a user approves. Your consent screen can show the exact scopes a client requests, store the decision, and let an administrator revoke it. Client types such as confidential server apps and public single-page or mobile apps are configured on the Hydra side, so the team can review which grants each client may use. The cost is operational: you deploy, upgrade, back up and monitor Hydra alongside Kratos, the login and consent application, and the database behind each. Confirm with Ory which Hydra features in your planned version need the Ory Enterprise License, such as the ROPC grant, and confirm with Clerk how its hosted flows handle the scopes, client types and consent behavior your applications depend on.
Which Ory features sit behind the enterprise license
Ory splits its identity stack between Apache-2.0 open source servers and the Ory Enterprise License, so the feature list you need decides which build you run. The cards below cover the capabilities the Kratos README lists as enterprise only, the additions in the Ory Enterprise License, and the operating commitments that come with it. Ory Open Source suits evaluation and deployments that accept occasional upgrade downtime without guaranteed CVE patching.
SAML and SCIM provisioning
The Kratos README lists SCIM and SAML as enterprise features that the open source version does not include. If your customers' IT teams expect SAML single sign-on or automated user provisioning from their directory, this is the first gap to close in a Clerk vs Ory evaluation. Clerk includes these capabilities as enterprise connections, so ask whether your product needs them on day one. Plan for Ory's enterprise tier or a separate component such as Ory Polis, and confirm with Ory which version of each you would receive.
Organization login and SSO
Organization login, which lets each B2B customer sign in through its own identity provider, is listed as an enterprise feature in the Kratos README. Clerk's organizations and per-connection SSO are the closest match, so this card is where migration effort is most likely to grow. Map each customer's connection type, login domain and role mapping before you choose a build. Open source Kratos does not give you this brokering layer out of the box.
Kratos multi-tenancy and organizations
The Ory Enterprise License adds multi-tenancy and organizations to Kratos, which matter when one deployment serves many customers with isolated identity data. If you plan to run separate tenants on shared infrastructure, confirm whether this is included in the license you are quoted. Teams with a single product audience and one identity pool may not need it. Ask Ory to show how tenant isolation works in the enterprise build before you commit your data model.
Hydra ROPC grant
The Enterprise License includes the Hydra resource owner password credentials (ROPC) grant, which Hydra's open source build does not provide. Few modern browser and mobile apps should use this flow, so it usually matters only for legacy clients or specific integrations. If an existing client depends on it, treat that dependency as a blocker to resolve before the migration starts. Consider moving those clients to the authorization code flow where possible.
24/7 support and CVE patching
Ory's enterprise terms add 24/7 support SLAs and timely CVE patches, while Ory says open source suits deployments that do not require guaranteed patching. For a regulated product that must answer security questionnaires, the patch commitment is often the deciding factor. Your team carries that work in the open source route, including monitoring releases and scheduling upgrades that may cause downtime. Ask Ory for the written patch and response commitments before you rely on either option.
Upgrade path and drop-in builds
Ory states that enterprise builds are drop-in replacements for open source installations, which simplifies moving from one build to the other. That claim still needs testing against your own configuration, database schema and custom identity flows. Plan a staging upgrade that covers Kratos and Hydra together, since both must be on compatible versions. Ask Ory which configuration changes, if any, the switch requires before you budget the move.
Where identity data lives and who runs the platform
Clerk, Ory Network and self-hosted Ory differ mainly in who holds the identity database, who applies patches and who produces the evidence an assessor asks for. Each card below names one of those decisions and the question to put to the vendor or your own team before you choose.
Clerk hosting location
Clerk is a hosted service, so user records, password data and session data sit in infrastructure Clerk operates. Clerk does not offer regional data residency that this page can confirm, so do not assume a region from marketing copy. Ask Clerk in writing where each category of identity data is stored and processed, which subprocessors touch it, and whether the contract covers that location. Keep the answer in your vendor file for the next assessment.
Ory Network as a managed option
Ory Network is Ory's managed cloud service, offered alongside the open-source components and the Ory Enterprise License. Your team still owns the application and its login flows, but Ory operates the identity servers and their database. Confirm the hosting region, backup schedule, retention, subprocessor list and incident notification terms in the order form, not only on the pricing page.
Self-hosted Ory open source
With Ory open source, Kratos, Hydra and the other components run in your own cloud account or data center, and identity records stay in the PostgreSQL, MySQL or CockroachDB database you provision. Your team owns upgrades, database backups, restore tests and CVE response. Ory states that open source fits evaluation and deployments where occasional upgrade downtime is acceptable and guaranteed CVE patching is not required.
Self-hosted Ory Enterprise License
The Ory Enterprise License gives you self-hosted builds of the same servers, with enterprise features such as Kratos multi-tenancy and organizations, plus 24/7 support SLAs and timely CVE patches. The hosting and data responsibilities stay with you, while the vendor takes on patch commitments. Ask Ory for the SLA text, the patch timelines it covers and which of your components fall under it, and confirm that the builds are drop-in replacements for your current install.
Patching and backup ownership
Under a hosted model, the vendor applies patches and manages backups on its side, and your contract defines the recovery commitments. Under self-hosting, every backup, restore test and version upgrade lands on your operations team or your implementation partner. Write down who restores identity data after a failed upgrade and how long sign-in can be unavailable, because an identity outage stops every application that depends on it.
Audit evidence and control ownership
Assessors ask for evidence of access reviews, change records, backup restores and encryption settings, whichever hosting model you choose. A hosted vendor can supply its own attestation reports, which you should request and review. For self-hosted Ory, your team produces the evidence for its own controls, and DeployOpen can prepare those controls and evidence for assessment. DeployOpen does not issue audit reports, attestations or certifications, and independent auditors and certification bodies do.
What drives the cost of each option
The cost comparison between Clerk and Ory has two sides with different shapes. On the Clerk side, you pay a subscription plus usage-based charges that depend on the number of monthly retained users and on enterprise SSO connections, so the bill moves with your user base and with each customer who asks for SAML or OIDC. On the Ory side, the open-source servers carry no license fee, but Ory Network (the managed service) and the Ory Enterprise License (self-hosted, commercially supported) are priced separately, and multi-tenancy, organizations and SAML-style organization login sit in the enterprise tier. Pull current figures from Ory pricing and Clerk's own pricing page before you model anything, because this page does not carry vendor prices and they change.
Self-hosted Ory moves several costs onto your side of the ledger. Infrastructure for Kratos, Hydra and their database (SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL or CockroachDB) is recurring. The login and account screens that Clerk ships as prebuilt components are a one-time frontend build, and their size depends on how many flows you need. Security review of the headless flows, upgrades across Ory releases, and on-call coverage are recurring labor. Ask any implementation partner for a written scope that separates one-time build and migration work from monthly hosting, operations and support, and state who is paid for each line: your staff, a partner, or the vendor.
When you request a quote, ask for these items in writing: the Ory Enterprise License fee and the features it covers, whether support includes 24/7 coverage and CVE patch commitments, the SLA terms and their remedies, the upgrade and downtime assumptions, and the price of moving from open source to the license later. On the Clerk side, ask for the exact billing model for your expected retained users and SSO connections, and for overage terms. Then build a side-by-side model with the same user count, connection count and growth assumptions. Keep a contingency line for the frontend and integration work, since it is usually the largest one-time item.
What a move from Clerk to Ory involves
The sequence turns Clerk's hosted login into a self-hosted Ory stack that you operate, with your own login and account screens and a verified cutover. The effort depends on your user count, authentication flows and custom user schema, so the steps below set the order rather than a timeline. The detailed procedure sits on the sibling migration page.
Export users and inventory Clerk configuration
Run Clerk's dashboard export and, where needed, pull organizations, metadata and enabled sign-in methods through the Clerk API. Your engineering lead or platform owner does this, and someone from the product team lists every login flow the app uses, including sign-up, password reset, social sign-in, passkeys and invitations. The step is done when you have a complete user file and a written inventory of flows that the new system must cover. Confirm with Clerk whether the export includes password hashes for your plan and which hashing algorithm applies, because this decides whether users keep their passwords at cutover.
Confirm password hash portability and schema fit
Check whether the exported hashes can be imported into Ory Kratos, which supports several hashing algorithms in its password method, and whether your Clerk user fields map to Kratos identity traits. Identify custom metadata that needs a schema change. Your security and identity engineers should run this check on a sample of accounts before any bulk import. The step produces a field mapping document and a pass or fail result for hash import. If hashes cannot be carried over, record the fallback, such as a forced password reset, and get the decision signed off by the business owner.
Stand up Kratos and Hydra in your infrastructure
Deploy Ory Kratos for identities and Ory Hydra for OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect in your own cloud account or data center, with a supported database such as PostgreSQL. Ory's open source servers are Apache-2.0 licensed and have a headless API design, so your team wires Hydra's login and consent flow to the screens you will build. Your platform team owns the deployment, backups and network controls. The step is done when both services run in a non-production environment, answer health checks and complete a test login through an OIDC client.
Build login, registration and account screens
Replace the prebuilt Clerk components with your own login, registration, recovery, verification and profile screens that call the Kratos and Hydra APIs. Your front-end engineers do this work, and the design team should review every error and recovery state, which Clerk's components previously handled. The step is done when a tester can complete every flow in the inventory from step one on staging, including the error paths. Plan for this to be the largest share of the engineering effort, since Ory does not ship a UI.
Map social, passkey and multi-factor login
Configure each social provider and passkey or TOTP method that the app uses in Kratos, and confirm the behavior of account linking when a user signs in with a new method. Security engineers should verify that passkey enrollment and recovery match the policy you wrote in step one. The step is complete when each method in the inventory has a passing test case and a documented recovery path for users who lose a factor. Check the Ory feature documentation for the current method list before you commit to a design.
Decide which enterprise features you need
List the B2B requirements your customers actually ask for, such as SAML, SCIM directory sync, organization-level login or multi-tenancy. The Kratos README lists SCIM, SAML, organization login and CAPTCHA as enterprise features outside the open source edition, and Ory describes the Ory Enterprise License as adding multi-tenancy, organizations and the Hydra ROPC grant with support SLAs and CVE patch commitments. Your procurement and security leads decide between open source with your own patch process and the license, and they should request the license terms in writing. If you need SAML and SCIM, also review the Ory Polis project, which Ory publishes under Apache-2.0.
Plan cutover and session handling
Agree the cutover method with the product owner, such as a scheduled import with a short write freeze, or a lazy migration that verifies a user against Clerk on first login and then moves the hash. Decide how existing Clerk sessions and tokens are handled, and whether users must sign in again. Your on-call team runs a rollback rehearsal. The step produces a runbook with the freeze window, import order, verification queries and the rollback trigger, approved by engineering and the business owner.
Verify the migrated users and retire Clerk
Sample migrated accounts and confirm that each one can sign in, reset a password and reach the right tenant or organization. Compare user counts and key attributes against the step one export, and review audit logs for failed logins after cutover. Once the verification report is signed, disable Clerk's sign-in paths, revoke API keys and keep the export archived under your retention policy before cancelling the subscription. The step closes when the verification report and the Clerk shutdown record are filed with your security team.
Questions buyers ask before choosing Clerk or Ory
How much login UI would we have to build if we move from Clerk to Ory?
Most of it. Ory Kratos is an API-first identity and user management system, so it does not ship the drop-in sign-in, sign-up, profile and MFA components that Clerk provides. Your team builds the login, registration, recovery, verification and account screens and connects them to Kratos flows. Ory's own documentation describes this headless model as the point: you own the look, the copy and the user journeys. The effort scales with how many screens your product needs and how many states each flow has, such as expired sessions, failed MFA and account recovery. Ask any implementation partner to split the UI work into screens, flows and styling so the estimate can be checked.
Can we run Ory without buying an enterprise license?
Yes, for the core identity, OAuth2 and OpenID Connect functions. Ory Kratos, Ory Hydra, Ory Keto, Ory Oathkeeper and Ory Polis are each licensed under Apache-2.0. The Ory Kratos README lists SCIM, SAML, organization login (SSO) and CAPTCHAs as enterprise features outside the open source version. Ory's documentation also says Ory Open Source suits evaluation and deployments where occasional upgrade downtime is acceptable and guaranteed CVE patching is not required. The Ory Enterprise License adds features such as Kratos multi-tenancy and organizations, the Hydra ROPC grant, 24/7 support SLAs and timely CVE patches. If you need SAML for enterprise customers, the license question is decided before the architecture, so confirm the feature list and terms with Ory directly.
Can we move existing users and their passwords from Clerk to Ory?
Usually, but it depends on what Clerk's export contains and on how your password hashes are stored. Clerk's dashboard export provides user records, and the migration depends on whether the password hashes can be exported in a form that Kratos can import. Check this early with a small test export before you commit to a timeline. Kratos stores credentials in its own schema, so the import step maps Clerk fields to Kratos identity traits and credential types. Also plan for social login links, verified email and phone status, MFA enrollment, passkeys and metadata, because some of these may not transfer and users may need to re-enroll. Ask for a field-by-field mapping document before work starts.
What skills does our team need to run Ory in production?
Your team needs backend engineers comfortable with OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect concepts, a frontend team that can build secure login flows, and an operations group that runs PostgreSQL, container platforms and TLS. Ory Kratos supports SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL and CockroachDB, but production deployments normally use one of the networked databases with backups and high availability that you manage. Hydra and Kratos are separate services, so you also need to design how they share sessions, consent and login pages. Security skills matter for token lifetimes, redirect URI rules and MFA policy. Staffing is the largest recurring cost, so ask any partner to name the roles and hours they assume for build, handover and run.
How long does a move from Clerk to Ory take, and what drives that time?
The duration depends on scope rather than on any single product feature. The main drivers are the number of login and account screens you rebuild, the complexity of your user data and password import, whether you need enterprise SSO or organization login (which can require the Ory Enterprise License), the number of client applications that must switch to Hydra-issued tokens, and how much testing you do before cutover. Parallel running, where Clerk and Ory both accept logins during a transition, adds time but lowers risk. Keycloak, ZITADEL and Ory versions also change over time: Kratos and Hydra v26.2.0 were both published on March 20, 2026, so check the current release and upgrade path when you plan. Ask for a timeline in the written scope, tied to these named drivers.
Can DeployOpen implement Ory in our environment and support it afterward?
DeployOpen plans, implements, customizes, integrates, hardens, backs up, upgrades, documents and supports self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own cloud accounts, data centers or air-gapped networks. For Ory, that can cover the Kratos and Hydra deployment, login and account screens, data import, integration with your applications, security testing and documentation. Most engagements are fixed-scope, with scope, deliverables and timelines agreed in writing before work starts. Ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing are available as retainers. DeployOpen does not publish a price list, and a quote follows from the written scope. DeployOpen does not issue audit reports or certifications, so any compliance evidence it prepares still goes to an independent auditor.
What ongoing costs should we expect after moving off Clerk?
Expect costs in three groups: the infrastructure you run, the people who operate it, and support or licensing where you choose it. Infrastructure includes the Kratos and Hydra services, a PostgreSQL or other database tier, backups, monitoring, and the network path for login traffic. People cost covers on-call, upgrades, CVE review and security reviews. Licensing is optional unless you need features reserved for the Ory Enterprise License or 24/7 support with CVE patch timelines. Ory Network is a managed option alongside the self-hosted components, which changes the cost mix. Clerk's per-user and per-connection charges end, but your internal effort replaces them. Ask for a cost breakdown by component so you can compare it with your current Clerk invoice.
How DeployOpen helps you evaluate and move to Ory
DeployOpen plans, implements, customizes, integrates, hardens, documents and supports self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own infrastructure. For Clerk vs Ory, we help you decide whether Ory Open Source, the Ory Enterprise License or a different identity platform fits your login, organization and SSO requirements, then carry out the chosen path.
How we scope
- We confirm which Clerk features your application uses, including components, organizations and enterprise connections, before choosing an Ory path.
- We map which requirements need Ory Enterprise License features, such as SAML, SCIM and organization login, against open-source coverage.
- Engagements are fixed-scope, with deliverables and timelines agreed in writing before work starts.
How we build
- We design the Ory Kratos identity schema, the login, registration and account screens you build, and the Ory Hydra OAuth2 and OpenID Connect flows.
- We deploy Ory components in your cloud account, data center or air-gapped network, using the database you choose from those Ory Kratos supports.
- We test password, passkey, social and multi-factor sign-in paths, and check session handling and token issuance before cutover.
How we hand over
- You receive documentation covering configuration, deployment topology, backup and restore procedures, and how to rotate keys and secrets.
- We document the user export and import checks, so you can confirm user counts, identifiers and password hash handling before switching providers.
- Your team gets a walkthrough of upgrade steps for Ory releases and the operational tasks that remain with your staff after handover.
How we support
- Ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing are available as a retainer, sized to the written scope.
- We help you prepare systems, controls and evidence for compliance assessments, while independent auditors issue any audit report or certification.
- Ask us to confirm the Ory CVE patching and uptime terms your organization needs, since open-source use does not include guaranteed patch timelines.
