Co-authored by
Hayden Bleaselnext-forge
Bereket EngidaBetter Auth

Better Auth is a comprehensive, open-source authentication framework for TypeScript. It is designed to be framework agnostic, but integrates well with Next.js and provides a lot of features out of the box.

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1. Swap out the auth package dependencies

Uninstall the existing Clerk dependencies from the auth package…

Terminal
pnpm remove @clerk/nextjs @clerk/themes @clerk/types --filter @repo/auth

…and install the Better Auth dependencies:

Terminal
pnpm add better-auth @repo/database --filter @repo/auth

​
2. Update your environment variables

Generate a secret with the following command to add it to the .env.local file in each Next.js application (app, web and api):

Terminal
npx @better-auth/cli secret

This will add a BETTER_AUTH_SECRET environment variable to the .env.local file.

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3. Setup the server and client auth

Update the auth package files with the following code:

Read more in the Better Auth installation guide.

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4. Update the auth components

Update both the sign-in.tsx and sign-up.tsx components in the auth package to use the signIn and signUp functions from the client file.

You can use different sign-in methods like social providers, phone, username etc. Read more about Better Auth basic usage.

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5. Generate Prisma Models

From the root folder, generate Prisma models for Better Auth by running the following command:

Terminal
npx @better-auth/cli generate --output ./packages/database/prisma/schema.prisma --config ./packages/auth/server.ts

You may have to comment out the server-only directive in packages/database/index.ts temporarily. Ensure you have environment variables set.

Best practice is to have a better-auth.ts file, but we’re just specifying the existing server.ts left over from Clerk here.

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6. Update the Provider file

Better Auth has no concept of a Provider as a higher-order component, so you can either remove it entirely or just replace it with a stub, like so:

packages/auth/provider.tsx
import type { ReactNode } from 'react';

type AuthProviderProps = {
  children: ReactNode;
};

export const AuthProvider = ({ children }: AuthProviderProps) => children;

​
7. Change Middleware

Change the middleware in the auth package to the following:

packages/auth/middleware.ts
import { NextRequest } from "next/server";
import { createAuthClient } from "better-auth/client";

const { getSession } = createAuthClient();

const isProtectedRoute = (request: NextRequest) => {
  return request.url.startsWith("/dashboard"); // change this to your protected route
}

export const authMiddleware = async (request: NextRequest) => {
  const session = await getSession(request);
  
  if (isProtectedRoute(request) && !session) {
    return NextResponse.redirect(new URL("/sign-in", request.url));
  }
  
  return NextResponse.next();
}

​
8. Update your apps

From here, you’ll need to replace any remaining Clerk implementations in your apps with Better Auth.

Here is some inspiration:

const user = await currentUser();
const { redirectToSignIn } = await auth();

// to

const session = await auth.api.getSession({
  headers: await headers(), // from next/headers
});
if (!session?.user) {
  return redirect('/sign-in'); // from next/navigation
}
// do something with session.user

const { orgId } = await auth();

// to

const h = await headers(); // from next/headers
const session = await auth.api.getSession({
  headers: h,
});
const orgId = session?.session.activeOrganizationId;
const fullOrganization = await auth.api.getFullOrganization({
  headers: h,
  query: { organizationId: orgId },
});
webhooks/stripe/route.ts
import { clerkClient } from '@repo/auth/server';

const clerk = await clerkClient();
const users = await clerk.users.getUserList();
const user = users.data.find(
  (user) => user.privateMetadata.stripeCustomerId === customerId
);

// to

import { database } from '@repo/database';

const user = await database.user.findFirst({
  where: {
    privateMetadata: {
      contains: { stripeCustomerId: customerId },
    },
  },
});

For using organization, check organization plugin and more from the Better Auth documentation.

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