8 Best Better Auth Starter Kits & Templates (2026)
Better Auth has become the default way new TypeScript products handle identity — the Better Auth team took over the Auth.js project in late 2025, and with NextAuth in maintenance mode, the migration wave is real. The fastest way to benefit is a starter kit with organizations, roles, two-factor, and passkeys already wired in. Below are the 8 best Better Auth starter kits and templates in 2026 — every entry verified to actually use Better Auth — from the official demo to full SaaS boilerplates.
Short on time? The official demo + examples are the ground truth, Better Auth UI solves your auth screens, and supastarter is the flagship premium SaaS kit built on it.
Quick Picks
- Ground truth: Official demo & examples — every feature, implemented by the maintainers
- Auth screens, solved: Better Auth UI — shadcn-style components for the whole lifecycle
- Best free Next.js starter: Better Auth Starter (Zexa) — admin dashboard + user management, MIT
- Best beyond Next.js: TanStarter — TanStack Start + Drizzle, public domain
- Best real-time RBAC demo: TanStack Start + Convex — role-gated admin over live data
- Flagship premium SaaS kit: supastarter — orgs, 2FA, passkeys + billing wired in
- Most stack-flexible premium: Makerkit — Better Auth on Drizzle or Prisma editions
- Best multi-platform: TurboStarter — one auth layer for web, mobile, extension
What Better Auth gives your dashboard
- Organizations & teams. Multi-tenant workspaces with invitations, member roles, and per-organization permissions — the plugin most SaaS dashboards adopt first.
- RBAC, 2FA, and passkeys. Role-based access control for admin areas, TOTP two-factor, and WebAuthn passkeys, all as first-party plugins rather than bolt-ons.
- Own your auth. Self-hosted on your database with any TypeScript framework — no per-user pricing like hosted providers, and no vendor lock-in on your user table.
- Migrating from NextAuth/Auth.js? The Better Auth team now maintains the Auth.js project, and NextAuth-style OAuth configs map over cleanly — most starters here exist precisely to give migrating teams a modern baseline.
Better Auth starter kits compared
| Name | Framework | License | Better Auth features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official demo & examples | Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Expo… | Free / MIT | Full feature surface, canonical patterns |
| Better Auth UI | React (shadcn/ui) | Free | Prebuilt auth & account components |
| Better Auth Starter (Zexa) | Next.js + Drizzle | Free / MIT | RBAC, admin dashboard, user management |
| TanStarter | TanStack Start + Drizzle | Free / public domain | Sessions, OAuth in typed server functions |
| TanStack Start + Convex | TanStack Start + Convex | Free / MIT | RBAC over real-time data, admin pages |
| supastarter | Next.js | Premium | Orgs, roles, 2FA, passkeys + full SaaS scaffold |
| Makerkit | Next.js (Drizzle / Prisma stacks) | Premium + free kit | Teams, MFA, social login on your ORM |
| TurboStarter | Next.js + Expo (Turborepo) | Premium | Shared auth across web, mobile, extension |
Official Better Auth resources
1. Better Auth Official Demo & Examples
The canonical reference, from the source
Why we like it: The Better Auth team’s own demo and example apps show the full feature surface — organizations, passkeys, two-factor, magic links, session management — implemented the way the maintainers intend.
Before adopting any starter, spend time with the official demo and the examples in the Better Auth repository (Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Expo and more). They’re the ground truth for how plugins compose — add the organization plugin, the admin plugin, passkeys — and what the API feels like in each framework.
Every other kit on this list builds on exactly these patterns.
2. Better Auth UI
Prebuilt shadcn-style auth components
Why we like it: Ready-made sign-in, sign-up, forgot-password, magic-link, and account-settings components for Better Auth in the shadcn/ui style — drop them in and the auth UI layer is done.
Better Auth handles the backend; Better Auth UI (originally by daveyplate, now its own GitHub org) handles everything your users see. The components cover the full lifecycle — email/password, social buttons, passkey prompts, organization management, user avatars and settings cards — and match the shadcn aesthetic most modern dashboards already use.
The fastest path from “auth works” to “auth looks shipped.”
Best free Better Auth starters
3. Better Auth Starter (Zexa)
Free Next.js starter with an admin dashboard
Why we like it: A focused free boilerplate that pairs Better Auth with the pages most products need on day one: an admin dashboard with user management — view, edit, ban/unban — plus role-based access control and email verification.
Zexa’s better-auth-starter is the strongest pure-Next.js free option we verified: sessions, RBAC, and a working admin interface on Drizzle ORM and PostgreSQL, MIT-licensed. It’s a starter in the best sense — small enough to understand fully before you extend it.
Grab it from GitHub; there’s no hosted demo, but the README documents the full feature set.
4. TanStarter
Better Auth beyond Next.js — TanStack Start
Why we like it: Proof that Better Auth isn’t a Next.js-only story: a minimal TanStack Start foundation with Better Auth, Drizzle + PostgreSQL, and shadcn/ui — released into the public domain.
TanStarter wires Better Auth into TanStack Start’s server functions and typed routing, giving you sessions and OAuth in the most type-safe React stack going. It’s deliberately lean, so it doubles as a readable reference for integrating Better Auth anywhere.
For the full TanStack Start picture, see our roundup of TanStack Start admin dashboard templates.
5. TanStack Start + Convex Template
Better Auth with RBAC and real-time data
Why we like it: A newer starter that shows Better Auth’s role-based access control working against Convex’s real-time database — admin dashboard with user management, live statistics, and a built-in AI chat.
This template is the most product-like free option: Better Auth roles gate an actual admin area, stats update live from Convex, and deploy scripts target Netlify. It’s earlier-stage than the rest of this list, but the RBAC-plus-realtime patterns are worth studying even if you don’t adopt it wholesale.
A glimpse of what auth-first, real-time dashboards look like on this stack.
Premium SaaS boilerplates on Better Auth
6. supastarter
The flagship Better Auth SaaS boilerplate
Why we like it: supastarter rebuilt its Next.js boilerplate around Better Auth — organizations, RBAC, 2FA, passkeys, and social login wired into a complete SaaS scaffold with billing, i18n, and a dashboard shell.
Of the premium kits, supastarter leans hardest into Better Auth as its identity layer: multi-tenant organizations with invitations and roles, session management, and prebuilt auth UI, sitting alongside payments, emails, and admin pages. Documentation and updates are its reputation.
The default premium choice if Better Auth is a deciding factor in your stack.
7. Makerkit
Better Auth via Drizzle or Prisma stacks
Why we like it: Makerkit ships multiple stacks — Supabase, Drizzle, and Prisma — and both the Drizzle and Prisma editions pair with Better Auth, so you pick the database layer without giving up modern auth.
Makerkit is the most modular of the premium kits: multi-tenant teams, billing, admin panels, and a plugin architecture, with Better Auth handling identity on its bring-your-own-database stacks (MFA, social login, magic links included). A free open-source lite kit lets you evaluate the conventions first.
Best when you want stack flexibility with the same SaaS scaffolding.
8. TurboStarter
Monorepo starter: web, mobile, extension
Why we like it: TurboStarter builds Better Auth into a Turborepo monorepo that targets web, mobile (Expo), and even browser extensions — one auth layer shared across every surface of your product.
If your product roadmap includes more than a web dashboard, TurboStarter’s shared Better Auth setup — sessions, OAuth, and user management consistent across Next.js and Expo — is the differentiator. Billing, emails, CI/CD, and i18n round out the usual SaaS checklist.
The multi-platform answer in the Better Auth ecosystem.
How to choose a Better Auth starter kit
Match the kit to how much product you need around the auth:
- Just learning the library? The official demo and examples — then add Better Auth UI when you build for real.
- Free Next.js app with an admin area? Zexa’s starter — RBAC and user management already built.
- On TanStack Start (or avoiding Next.js)? TanStarter, or the Convex template for real-time data.
- Shipping a commercial SaaS? supastarter as the default, Makerkit to choose your ORM, TurboStarter when mobile is in scope.
- Note on curation: we verified each kit actually ships Better Auth — several popular boilerplates that rank for this query (e.g. Clerk-based ones) don’t.
Frequently asked questions
What is Better Auth?
Better Auth is a framework-agnostic, self-hosted authentication library for TypeScript — email/password, social OAuth, sessions, and a plugin system covering organizations, role-based access control, two-factor, passkeys, and magic links. It runs on your database with any modern framework, from Next.js to TanStack Start to Expo.
Better Auth vs NextAuth (Auth.js) — what happened?
The Better Auth team took over the Auth.js project in September 2025, and NextAuth is effectively in maintenance mode. For new projects, Better Auth is the actively developed path with a larger first-party feature set (orgs, 2FA, passkeys as plugins). Existing NextAuth apps keep working, but most migration guides — and most starters in this list — assume you’re moving to Better Auth.
Better Auth vs Clerk — which should I use?
Clerk is a hosted service: fastest to add, per-user pricing, your user data lives with the vendor. Better Auth is self-hosted: you own the data and pay nothing per user, at the cost of running it yourself. Dashboards with many seats or strict data requirements usually favor Better Auth; weekend projects often start with Clerk.
What is the best free Better Auth starter?
Zexa’s better-auth-starter is the strongest free Next.js option — RBAC, user management, and an admin dashboard on Drizzle + PostgreSQL. Outside Next.js, TanStarter (TanStack Start) is a clean public-domain foundation. Pair either with Better Auth UI for ready-made auth screens.
Do these kits include organizations and multi-tenancy?
The premium kits do — supastarter, Makerkit, and TurboStarter all ship organizations/teams with roles and invitations on Better Auth’s organization plugin. Among free options, the official examples demonstrate the plugin, and Zexa’s starter covers role-based access without full multi-tenancy.
Should I just start from the official Better Auth example?
If you only need authentication, yes — the official demo and examples are the cleanest reference and always track the latest release. Choose a starter kit when you want the rest of the product shell too: an admin dashboard, organizations, billing, and emails already wired to Better Auth so you skip weeks of integration work.
Building the rest of the product? See the best Next.js SaaS templates, SaaS admin dashboard templates, and Next.js admin dashboards with shadcn/ui — or the TanStack Start admin roundup if you’re going the type-safe route.
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