devtools.fm: Developer Tools, Open Source, Software Development Bereket Engida - Better-Auth
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Aug 10, 2025 Bereket Engida, the creator of BetterAuth, shares his journey from frustration to innovation in the world of authentication. He discusses the challenges of building this extensible open-source library for JavaScript, including issues with multi-tenancy and type safety. Bereket emphasizes the importance of a modular approach and delves into the complexities of integrating plugins while maintaining a robust database schema. He advocates for making advanced features like SSO free, stressing that open-source tools can thrive without monetization.
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Started BetterAuth To Solve Multi-Tenancy
- Bereket built BetterAuth after hitting walls implementing multi-tenancy with existing libs.
- He decided to create a plugin-based auth to add features without rebuilding the core.
Rewrote The Plugin Architecture Multiple Times
- Bereket rewrote the whole library four times to get the plugin abstractions right.
- Plugins for client and server plus TypeScript types made the architecture especially hard.
Unifying Adapters With A Layer Over ORMs
- BetterAuth builds its own ORM-like layer and converts calls to adapters to avoid one adapter implementation per plugin.
- That design prevents unsustainable adapter-per-plugin duplication across ORMs.