Stack Auth is a managed user authentication solution. It is developer-friendly and fully open-source (licensed under MIT and AGPL).
Stack Auth gets you started in just five minutes, after which you'll be ready to use all of its features as you grow your project. Our managed service is completely optional and you can export your user data and self-host, for free, at any time.
We support Next.js, React, and JavaScript frontends, along with any backend that can use our REST API. Check out our setup guide to get started.
- How is this different from X?
- ✨ Features
- 📦 Installation & Setup
- 🌱 Some community projects built with Stack Auth
- 🏗 Development & Contribution
- ❤ Contributors
Ask yourself about X:
- Is
Xopen-source? - Is
Xdeveloper-friendly, well-documented, and lets you get started in minutes? - Besides authentication, does
Xalso do authorization and user management (see feature list below)?
If you answered "no" to any of these questions, then that's how Stack Auth is different from X.
To get notified first when we add new features, please subscribe to our newsletter.
To install Stack Auth in your Next.js project (for React, JavaScript, or other frameworks, see our complete documentation):
-
Run Stack Auth's installation wizard with the following command:
npx @stackframe/init-stack@latest
If you prefer not to open a browser during setup (useful for CI/CD environments or restricted environments):
npx @stackframe/init-stack@latest --no-browser
-
Then, create an account on the Stack Auth dashboard, create a new project with an API key, and copy its environment variables into the .env.local file of your Next.js project:
NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PROJECT_ID=<your-project-id> NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PUBLISHABLE_CLIENT_KEY=<your-publishable-client-key> STACK_SECRET_SERVER_KEY=<your-secret-server-key> -
That's it! You can run your app with
npm run devand go to http://localhost:3000/handler/signup to see the sign-up page. You can also check out the account settings page at http://localhost:3000/handler/account-settings.
Check out the documentation for a more detailed guide.
Have your own? Happy to feature it if you create a PR or message us on Discord.
- Stack Auth Example by career-tokens
- Stack Auth Demo by the Stack Auth team
- Stack Auth E-Commerce Example by the Stack Auth team
This is for you if you want to contribute to the Stack Auth project or run the Stack Auth dashboard locally.
Important: Please read the contribution guidelines carefully and join our Discord if you'd like to help.
- Node v20
- pnpm v9
- Docker
Note: 24GB+ of RAM is recommended for a smooth development experience.
In a new terminal:
pnpm install
# Build the packages and generate code. We only need to do this once, as `pnpm dev` will do this from now on
pnpm build:packages
pnpm codegen
# Start the dependencies (DB, Inbucket, etc.) as Docker containers, seeding the DB with the Prisma schema
# Make sure you have Docker (or OrbStack) installed and running
pnpm restart-deps
# Start the dev server
pnpm dev
# In a different terminal, run tests in watch mode
pnpm testYou can now open the dev launchpad at http://localhost:8100. From there, you can navigate to the dashboard at http://localhost:8101, API on port 8102, demo on port 8103, docs on port 8104, Inbucket (e-mails) on port 8105, and Prisma Studio on port 8106. See the dev launchpad for a list of all running services.
Your IDE may show an error on all @stackframe/XYZ imports. To fix this, simply restart the TypeScript language server; for example, in VSCode you can open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and run Developer: Reload Window or TypeScript: Restart TS server.
Pre-populated .env files for the setup below are available and used by default in .env.development in each of the packages. However, if you're creating a production build (eg. with pnpm run build), you must supply the environment variables manually (see below).
# NOTE:
# Please see the dev launchpad (default: http://localhost:8100) for a list of all running services.
# Installation commands
pnpm install: Installs dependencies
# Types & linting commands
pnpm typecheck: Runs the TypeScript type checker. May require a build or dev server to run first.
pnpm lint: Runs the ESLint linter. Optionally, pass `--fix` to fix some of the linting errors. May require a build or dev server to run first.
# Build commands
pnpm build: Builds all projects, including apps, packages, examples, and docs. Also runs code-generation tasks. Before you can run this, you will have to copy all `.env.development` files in the folders to `.env.production.local` or set the environment variables manually.
pnpm build:packages: Builds all the npm packages.
pnpm codegen: Runs all the code-generation tasks, eg. Prisma client and OpenAPI docs generation.
# Development commands
pnpm dev: Runs the development servers of the main projects, excluding most examples. On the first run, requires the packages to be built and codegen to be run. After that, it will watch for file changes (including those in code-generation files). If you have to restart the development server for anything, that is a bug that you can report.
pnpm dev:full: Runs the development servers for all projects, including examples.
pnpm dev:basic: Runs the development servers only for the necessary services (backend and dashboard). Not recommended for most users, upgrade your machine instead.
# Environment commands
pnpm start-deps: Starts the Docker dependencies (DB, Inbucket, etc.) as Docker containers, and initializes them with the seed script & migrations. Note: The started dependencies will be visible on the dev launchpad (port 8100 by default).
pnpm stop-deps: Stops the Docker dependencies (DB, Inbucket, etc.) and deletes the data on them.
pnpm restart-deps: Stops and starts the dependencies.
# Database commands
pnpm db:migration-gen: Currently not used. Please generate Prisma migrations manually (or with AI).
pnpm db:reset: Resets the database to the initial state. Run automatically by `pnpm start-deps`.
pnpm db:init: Initializes the database with the seed script & migrations. Run automatically by `pnpm db:reset`.
pnpm db:seed: Re-seeds the database with the seed script. Run automatically by `pnpm db:init`.
pnpm db:migrate: Runs the migrations. Run automatically by `pnpm db:init`.
# Testing commands
pnpm test <file-filters>: Runs the tests. Pass `--bail 1` to make the test only run until the first failure. Pass `--no-watch` to run the tests once instead of in watch mode.
# Various commands
pnpm explain-query: Paste a SQL query to get an explanation of the query plan, helping you debug performance issues.
pnpm verify-data-integrity: Verify the integrity of the data in the database by running a bunch of integrity checks. This should never fail at any point in time (unless you messed with the DB manually).Note: When working with AI, you should keep a terminal tab with the dev server open so the AI can run queries against it.
Storia trained an AI on our codebase that can answer questions about using and contributing to Stack Auth.
graph TB
Website[Your Website]
User((User))
Admin((Admin))
subgraph "Stack Auth System"
Dashboard[Stack Auth Dashboard<br/>/apps/dashboard]
Backend[Stack Auth API Backend<br/>/apps/backend]
Database[(PostgreSQL Database)]
EmailService[Email Service<br/>Inbucket]
WebhookService[Webhook Service<br/>Svix]
StackSDK[Client SDK<br/>/packages/stack]
subgraph Shared
StackUI[Stack Auth UI<br/>/packages/stack-ui]
StackShared[Stack Auth Shared<br/>/packages/stack-shared]
StackEmails[Stack Auth Emails<br/>/packages/stack-emails]
end
end
Admin --> Dashboard
User --> Website
Website --> StackSDK
Backend --> Database
Backend --> EmailService
Backend --> WebhookService
Dashboard --> Shared
Dashboard --> StackSDK
StackSDK --HTTP Requests--> Backend
StackSDK --> Shared
Backend --> Shared
classDef container fill:#1168bd,stroke:#0b4884,color:#ffffff
classDef database fill:#2b78e4,stroke:#1a4d91,color:#ffffff
classDef external fill:#999999,stroke:#666666,color:#ffffff
classDef deprecated stroke-dasharray: 5 5
class Dashboard,Backend,EmailService,WebhookService,Website container
class Database database
Thanks to CodeViz for generating the diagram!














