Clerk vs Vercel
User management and authentication as a service
vs. Frontend cloud for Next.js and modern web frameworks
Pricing tiers
Clerk
Free
50k MAU included. No SSO/SAML. Perfect for side projects and early prototypes.
Free
Pro
$25/mo (or $20/mo annual). 50k MAU, $0.02 each after. 1 enterprise SSO connection per app. Webhooks, JWT templates, custom session duration.
$25/mo
Business
$300/mo (or $250/mo annual). Advanced organizations, enhanced support, additional enterprise features.
$300/mo
Enterprise
Custom. Volume MAU discounts, SLA, workspace-wide SAML SSO, dedicated support.
Custom
Vercel
Hobby (Free)
Free forever. 100 GB bandwidth, 1M functions, 360 GB-hrs memory, 1M edge requests. 1 developer. Hard caps.
Free
Pro
$20/user/month. 1 TB bandwidth, pay-as-you-go overages. Team seats, concurrent builds.
$20/mo
Enterprise
Custom pricing. SLA, SSO, audit logs, dedicated support.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing hobby on Clerk vs hobby on Vercel.
| Metric | Clerk | Vercel |
|---|---|---|
| bandwidth gb month | — | 100 GB/month |
| edge requests | — | 1000000 requests/month |
| function invocations | — | 1000000 invocations/month |
| mao | 100 orgs/month | — |
| mau | 50000 users/month | — |
| memory gb hrs | — | 360 GB-hrs/month |
| sso connections | 0 connections | — |
| team members | — | 1 users |
Features
Clerk · 15 features
- Account Portal — Hosted sign-in/user profile pages at accounts.yourapp.com — zero UI code, fully …
- Bot Protection — Cloudflare Turnstile CAPTCHA integrated into sign-up.
- Clerk Billing — Built-in Stripe-powered billing: subscriptions, plans, proration — ties directly…
- Enterprise SSO (SAML/OIDC) — SAML and OIDC for enterprise customers. Per-domain connection. Pro+ (1 included)…
- Impersonation — Act as a user from dashboard to debug. Logged.
- JWT Templates — Custom JWT issuance for third-party backends (Supabase, Hasura, Firebase, Convex…
- Machine Tokens (M2M) — API keys and machine tokens for service-to-service auth in addition to user sess…
- Multi-Factor Auth — TOTP (authenticator apps), SMS OTP, backup codes. Forced or optional per user.
- Organizations (B2B) — Multi-tenant orgs with roles, permissions, invitations, domain allowlist, and pe…
- Passkeys (WebAuthn) — Passwordless passkey sign-in with per-device biometrics.
- Prebuilt Components — Drop-in React components: <SignIn/>, <SignUp/>, <UserButton/>, <OrganizationSwit…
- Sessions — Server-side session tokens. Sliding expiration by default; configurable absolute…
- User Management — Full user CRUD, metadata (public/private/unsafe), email/phone verification, ban/…
- Waitlist Mode — Collect sign-ups before opening the app. Approve waitlist entries to activate ac…
- Webhooks — Events: user.created/updated/deleted, session.created, organization.* — delivere…
Vercel · 15 features
- Cron Jobs — Scheduled serverless functions. JSON config in vercel.json.
- Edge Functions — V8-isolate serverless functions at edge locations. Lower cold start than Lambda.
- Edge Middleware — Intercept requests at edge before hitting origin — auth, routing, A/B tests.
- Git-based Deploys — Auto-deploy from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket on every push. Preview URLs for every…
- Image Optimization — On-the-fly resize, format conversion (AVIF, WebP), CDN caching.
- Incremental Static Regeneration — Re-generate static pages on-demand or via revalidate. Next.js-native.
- Log Drains — Stream logs to Datadog, Axiom, Logtail, HTTP endpoints.
- Preview Deployments — Unique URL per Git branch/PR. Password-protect or share. Infinite.
- Serverless Functions — Node.js, Python, Go. AWS Lambda under the hood. Up to 15 min duration.
- Speed Insights — Real User Monitoring. FCP, LCP, CLS, INP per page.
- Vercel Blob — Managed object storage (S3-compatible API).
- Vercel KV (Redis) — Managed Redis via Upstash. Edge-accessible.
- Vercel Marketplace — One-click integrations: Supabase, Clerk, Sentry, PostHog, Resend, 100+ services.
- Vercel Postgres — Managed Neon Postgres. Edge-accessible with @vercel/postgres.
- Web Analytics — Privacy-friendly web analytics. Core Web Vitals, visitors, pages.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Clerk | Vercel |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | — | Vercel CLI |
| SDK | @clerk/astro, @clerk/backend / @clerk/clerk-sdk-node, @clerk/chrome-extension, @clerk/clerk-expo, @clerk/clerk-js (vanilla), @clerk/clerk-react, @clerk/clerk-react-native, @clerk/nextjs, @clerk/nuxt, @clerk/remix, clerk-sdk-go, clerk-sdk-python, clerk-sdk-ruby, @clerk/tanstack-start, @clerk/vue | @vercel/client |
| REST | Backend REST API, Frontend API | Vercel REST API |
| MCP | Clerk MCP | Vercel MCP |
| OTHER | Webhooks (Svix) | Edge Runtime Bindings |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Clerk and Vercel are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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