Auth0 → Hanko

Auth0 is a hosted identity service that adds sign-in and authorization to applications. Its documentation describes uses such as password and social login, securing APIs with OAuth 2.0, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication and user management. Hanko is a much smaller authentication product built around passkeys, with passwords, passcodes and social login alongside them. It is open source and can be run on your own servers or used as the managed Hanko Cloud.

What Auth0 costs today

Auth0’s pricing page lists a Free plan at $0 per month with up to 25,000 monthly active users, unlimited social connections, one enterprise connection and five organizations. Paid B2C plans start with Essentials at $35 per month ($385 per year) and Professional at $240 per month ($2,640 per year). The B2B variants cost more: Essentials at $150 per month and Professional at $800 per month, with extra enterprise SSO connections at $100 per month each. Enterprise pricing is a custom quote with a 99.99% SLA. Bulk user export is not available on the Free plan, which matters for anyone planning to leave.

What Hanko costs

Hanko Cloud’s Starter plan is free with 10,000 monthly active users and two projects, and it includes passkeys, passwords, social sign-in, MFA, a custom domain and an admin dashboard. Pro costs $29 per month, includes 10,000 users, then charges $0.01 per additional user, and adds webhooks, an Admin API and custom SMTP. SAML SSO is a Pro add-on at $49 per month per connection. Enterprise is quoted individually and includes a commercial licence option and private cloud hosting. The self-hosted edition is free to run; its backend is licensed under AGPL-3.0, while the Elements and frontend SDK are MIT-licensed.

What the switch changes

The user-facing change is that passkeys become the centre of the login flow rather than one option among many, which suits teams that want to move away from passwords. The pitch comes with a cost in breadth: Hanko Cloud runs only in the AWS Frankfurt region, and organizations, roles and permissions are listed as in development, so multi-tenant B2B setups that use Auth0 Organizations have no direct equivalent today. On the integration side, Hanko offers Elements, web components for login and profile screens styled with CSS, and a frontend SDK for teams who build their own interface. Native mobile SDKs are listed as upcoming. Self-hosting removes the per-user bill but moves operations, upgrades and uptime onto your own team, and the AGPL terms apply to the backend.

Migration is the largest trade-off. Hanko Cloud imports users through the console from a JSON array in which each user needs a UUID identifier, emails and timestamps. The import guide does not mention password hashes, so existing users may need to set a new credential or sign in with a passkey. Hanko’s documentation describes hash-preserving migration only for Firebase. Exporting from Auth0 requires a paid plan.

Migration checklist

• Confirm which Auth0 features are in use: enterprise connections, Organizations, Actions, MFA factors.
• Move off the Free plan if a bulk user export is needed, then export users as JSON.
• Check with Hanko whether password hashes from Auth0 can be imported; the public guide does not say.
• Convert user IDs to UUIDs and map fields to Hanko’s import schema.
• Replace the Auth0 login screens and SDK calls with Hanko Elements or the frontend SDK.
• Rework session validation on the backend and any webhooks or rules that depended on Auth0.
• Run both systems in parallel with a small group of users before cutting over.

Teams that need broad enterprise features may also look at Keycloak, Zitadel or SuperTokens, which are not reviewed here.