Why we use Clerk for auth
If you want to build top software, you have to surround yourself with top software to experience it every day.
— Thomas Paul Mann, Co-founder and CEO of Raycast on linear.fm
At Bucket, we're inspired by the products we use, and I'd like to feature part of our stack — starting with Clerk, a user management platform.
We prioritize craftsmanship. So, when we started building the auth feature — the first interaction you have with our product — we wanted to make it a great first-time experience.
We want you to have a seamless, secure and beautifully crafted login experience, and we also need a solution that is easy to maintain and scales with our needs. After evaluating several providers, we ultimately chose Clerk. Here's why.
TL,DR
- First, we used Google Auth with Passport.js, and faced some limitations.
- We considered multiple options: GCP Identity Platform, WorkOS, Clerk.
- We picked Clerk. Beautiful out-of-the-box, quickly set up, and scalable — a no-brainer.
The need for a new auth solution
Initially, we were using Google Auth with Passport.js to handle authentication. While this setup worked, it had some limitations:
- Passport.js was unmaintained – Relying on an outdated auth library wasn't a sustainable long-term solution.
- We needed user/password authentication – Some users preferred traditional credentials over Google authentication.
- SSO support was becoming essential – As a B2B-focused platform, we were looking towards a solution that would make it simple to provide Sign-On (SSO) with SAML.
These needs pushed us to look for a more robust and scalable auth provider.
Evaluating options
We considered several providers, including:
- GCP Identity Platform – Google's Identity Platform is affordable and integrates well with other Google Cloud services. However, from our perspective, it lacked some of the developer experience improvements we were looking for.
- WorkOS – A mature and feature-rich auth provider. However, we didn't feel 100% confident about their pricing structure and their per-connection SAML costs in particular.
- Clerk – a "comprehensive user management platform" with its developer-friendly approach, beautiful pre-built UI components, and a strong vision that goes beyond just authentication.
These three options supported core authentication features like SSO and SAML, but Clerk ultimately won us over.
Why Clerk?
In short:
- Quick setup
- Beautifully crafted
- Broader vision
- Reasonable pricing
- Responsive support
1. Quick setup
Above all, one advantage of Clerk was its simple setup. We were able to integrate Clerk into our platform quickly, without significant friction. Their documentation was clear, and their API made it simple to implement auth without unnecessary complexity.
2. Beautiful pre-built components
Clerk offers beautifully crafted UI components that fit seamlessly into Bucket. As a company that values craftsmanship, having a signup flow that looked good out of the box was important to us. This saved us time and ensured a smooth UX from day one.
3. Broader vision
Clerk isn't just about auth. It provides organizations and user roles on which we can define permissions and secure different access levels within Bucket. These features are priceless for a B2B SaaS company, and we're super excited about this flexibility as we scale.
4. Reasonable pricing
Their pricing is very reasonable to us. While GCP Identity Platform seems cheaper, Clerk balances affordability and functionality. And we didn't have to worry about unexpected pricing jumps as we onboard more SSO/SAML customers.
5. Responsive support
Last but not least, during our implementation, we ran into some issues, and their support team replied fast, helping us resolve them quickly. Having a responsive team behind our auth provider gave us confidence in our choice.
Final thoughts
Switching to Clerk has been a great decision for us. Beautiful out-of-the-box, quickly set up, and scalable — it's a no-brainer, and a source of inspiration for us at Bucket.
We're building a feature management tool for B2B SaaS products based on these exact first principles: craftsmanship, developer-first, and scalability.
If you're into it, go to bucket.co, give it a spin, and let us know what you think @bucketdotco on X.
We'd love to have your feedback!
