Comparing
Complete authentication for Next.js — OAuth providers (Google, GitHub, etc.), email magic links, JWT sessions, and database adapters in one package.
End-to-end type-safe APIs — share TypeScript types between server and client without code generation.
| Metric | next-auth | @trpc/server |
|---|---|---|
| Ecosystem | npm | npm |
| Difficulty | Intermediate ✓ | Advanced |
| Weekly downloads | 1.5M↑ | 1.2M |
| Latest version | v4.24.11 | v11.0.0 |
| Recipes | 1 | 2↑ |
next-auth only
Shared
@trpc/server only
Any Next.js app needing auth — social login, email magic links, or username/password. It's the standard choice for Next.js auth.
Full-stack TypeScript monorepos, Next.js apps where frontend and backend share a codebase, projects where you want type safety without REST/GraphQL ceremony.
Non-Next.js projects, when you need very complex RBAC that next-auth doesn't support natively, or when your team owns an existing auth service.
Public APIs consumed by third parties (use REST or GraphQL). Polyglot teams where some consumers aren't TypeScript. Microservices with many separate repos.
next-auth
@trpc/server