KavachOS vs better-auth

better-auth is a solid, well-maintained TypeScript auth library. It has more OAuth providers today, a mature Prisma integration, and a large ecosystem of community plugins. If you’re building a standard web app where human auth is the entire story, it gets you there fast. KavachOS starts from a different premise: agents are first-class entities, not OAuth clients. The comparison below reflects that split honestly. Where better-auth ships something, we say so. Where it doesn’t, we say that too. A migration guide from better-auth is coming soon.

Feature matrix

Capability	KavachOS	better-auth
Language	TypeScript, MIT	TypeScript, MIT
Named OAuth providers	24	37
MCP OAuth 2.1 server	Built in with agent identity, delegation, and ephemeral sessions	Thin OIDC wrapper plugin
Agent identity	First-class `AgentIdentity` entity next to `User`	Treated as an OAuth client
A2A protocol	Server + client + Agent Cards with JWS signing	Not shipped
Ephemeral agent sessions	Built in with auto-expiry, action limits, and audit grouping	Not shipped
Cost attribution per agent/tool/chain	Built in with alerts and budget integration	Not shipped
Trust scoring	5-level built in	Not shipped
Compliance reports (EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, SOC 2, ISO 42001)	Exports built in	Not shipped
Unified RBAC + ABAC + ReBAC policy engine	One engine	RBAC only
Approval flows (CIBA)	Built in	Not shipped
Verifiable Credentials audit export	On roadmap	Not shipped
Edge runtime (Workers, Deno, Bun)	Zero `node:crypto` imports, Web Crypto throughout	Partial
DB adapters	Drizzle (core) plus Prisma (`@kavachos/prisma`)	Prisma, Drizzle, Kysely, Mongo, Redis
Client libraries	React, Vue, Svelte, Electron, Expo, plain fetch	React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, Electron, Expo

Pick KavachOS if

Your app runs AI agents with their own identity, permissions, or audit requirements.
You need MCP OAuth 2.1 with proper agent delegation, not just an OIDC wrapper.
You’re targeting Cloudflare Workers, Deno, or Bun and need full edge compatibility from day one.

Pick better-auth if

You’re building a human-facing web app with no agent workloads.
You need one of the 13 additional OAuth providers it ships that KavachOS doesn’t yet cover.
You want a Mongo or Redis adapter and Prisma first-class support right now.

Both are MIT, both are TypeScript. The question is whether agents are part of your architecture.

​Feature matrix

​Pick KavachOS if

​Pick better-auth if

Feature matrix

Pick KavachOS if

Pick better-auth if