Auth0 vs Portkey
Customer identity platform from Okta
vs. Enterprise AI gateway + observability + guardrails + prompt mgmt
Pricing tiers
Auth0
B2C Essentials
Starting at 500 MAUs. Pro MFA, RBAC, passwordless, SAML, 10 orgs.
$35/mo
B2B Essentials
Unlimited orgs, 3 SSO connections, RBAC.
$150/mo
B2C Professional
Starting at 500 MAUs. Includes attack protection, custom DB, enterprise MFA.
$240/mo
B2B Professional
5+ SSO connections, attack protection, custom DB.
$800/mo
Enterprise
Custom. 99.99% SLA, dedicated support.
Custom
Portkey
Developer (Free)
Free forever. 10k logs/month. Universal API + key management. 3 prompt templates. Basic observability.
Free
Gateway (OSS)
MIT-licensed gateway only (no observability UI). Self-host for routing/fallbacks.
$0 base (usage-based)
Production
$49/month. 100k logs ($9 per additional 100k). Fallbacks, load balancing, retries, semantic caching. Unlimited prompts. RBAC.
$49/mo
Enterprise
Custom. 10M+ logs/month. Custom guardrails, advanced evals, SSO, budget controls, VPC + on-prem, SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing b2c-essentials on Auth0 vs free on Portkey.
| Metric | Auth0 | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| mau start | 500 MAU | — |
| sso connections | 0 conns | — |
Features
Auth0 · 14 features
- Attack Protection — Bot detection, brute-force protection, breached-password detection, suspicious I…
- Auth0 Actions — Node.js + TS hooks that run during auth flows (login, post-login, signup, MFA). …
- Auth0 FGA (OpenFGA) — Fine-grained relationship-based authorization (ReBAC). Based on Google Zanzibar.
- Custom Database — BYO user DB: scripts in Actions read from your database and create Auth0 users o…
- Custom Domain — Serve auth at auth.yourbrand.com with managed cert.
- Enterprise SSO — SAML 2.0 + OIDC + AD/LDAP enterprise connections. Per-tenant or per-org.
- Log Streaming — Stream tenant logs to Datadog, Splunk, Sumo Logic, Azure Sentinel, HTTP, Mixpane…
- Machine-to-Machine — Client-credentials grant for backend services.
- Multi-Factor Auth — SMS, Voice, Email, TOTP, WebAuthn (biometrics), Push (Guardian app), Duo.
- Organizations — Multi-tenant B2B: orgs with invitations, roles, branding, enterprise connections…
- Passkeys — FIDO2/WebAuthn passkey sign-in.
- Passwordless — Email magic link + code, SMS code, WebAuthn.
- RBAC — Roles, permissions, API scopes — attach to users or orgs.
- Universal Login — Hosted login page with customization, multi-factor flows, passwordless, social, …
Portkey · 18 features
- AI Gateway — Unified OpenAI-compatible API to 250+ LLMs.
- Alerts — Thresholds on latency, error rate, cost, usage.
- Budget Controls — Per-key + per-team spending limits.
- Evaluations — Built-in evaluator templates + custom.
- Fallbacks — Config-driven provider fallback chains.
- Guardrails — Pre/post processors for safety + compliance.
- Load Balancing — Round-robin, weighted, least-latency across providers.
- MCP Support — Use MCP servers as tools through gateway.
- Observability — Logs, traces, feedback, alerts, cost tracking.
- OSS Gateway — Open-source gateway (portkey-ai/gateway).
- Prompt Library — Shared prompt library + public marketplace.
- Prompt Templates — Version + test + collaborate on prompts.
- Retries — Configurable retry policies per route.
- Role-Based Access Control — Team permissions on prompts + keys.
- Semantic Caching — Vector-based cache on query meaning.
- Simple Caching — Exact-match cache.
- Virtual Keys — Per-app keys with budget + rate limits + permissions.
- VPC Deployment (Ent) — Deploy in your own VPC for compliance.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Auth0 | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Auth0 CLI | Portkey CLI |
| SDK | Auth0 Android, Auth0 iOS/Swift, @auth0/nextjs-auth0, Auth0 React SDK, Auth0 SPA.js SDK, Go Auth0 SDK, Node Auth0 Backend SDK, Python Auth0 SDK | portkey-ai (Node), portkey-ai (Python) |
| REST | Authentication API, Management API | Portkey API (OpenAI-compat) |
| MCP | — | Portkey MCP |
| OTHER | — | Portkey Dashboard |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Auth0 and Portkey are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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