# Clerk: how AI models rank it, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Named in 26 judge labels across 2 categories by 10 of 14 models. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/clerk

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Customer identity and access management](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/identity/customer-identity-and-access-management/index.md) | 4% | 6 | 13% | 23 |
| [Multi-factor authentication](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/identity/multi-factor-authentication/index.md) | 0% | 22 | 0% | 3 |

## What the models said for it

- "Clerk has become the go-to recommendation for modern startups building web apps" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, CIAM)
- "Best Overall Value: Clerk" (Kimi K2, CIAM)
- "Developer‑centric teams building modern consumer apps favor Auth0, Clerk, Supabase Auth, Firebase Auth, Descope, Frontegg" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, CIAM)
- "Clerk offers exceptional value and covers all the enterprise requirements B2B customers typically demand" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, CIAM)

## And against it

- "Clerk's own postmortems show that outages in one service can cascade into session-management downtime, and Clerk notes its session service incidents can cause "complete downtime" for customers." (GPT-5.4 mini, CIAM)
- "Clerk or similar developer-first tools as your only enterprise CIAM. Be cautious if you need mature consent management" (Perplexity Sonar, CIAM)
- "Modern developer-first options with good UX, but verify their long-term viability and security maturity" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, CIAM)

## By model

| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 8 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Kimi K2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

## Sources returned with these answers

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Clerk, from 62 of the 84 answers that named it (only the models that return a source list).

### Domains cited

- clerk.com: 33 (its own site)
- securityboulevard.com: 25
- g2.com: 23
- startupstash.com: 21
- spotsaas.com: 20
- startwithidentity.com: 20
- auth0.com: 18
- kinde.com: 18
- workos.com: 16
- capterra.com: 15

### Pages cited

- https://auth0.com/pricing: 13
- https://g2.com/categories/customer-identity-and-access-management-ciam/small-business: 13
- https://startupstash.com/customer-identity-and-access-management-ciam-tools: 13
- https://clerk.com/pricing: 12
- https://softwareadvice.com/ciam: 12
- https://startwithidentity.com/rankings: 12
- https://ibtimes.com/top-5-best-customer-identity-access-management-ciam-solutions-2026-3800878: 11
- https://securityboulevard.com/2025/12/top-ciam-for-smbs-secure-affordable-options: 9

## In its own words

What Clerk's own pages state, read 2026-09-28. Stated by the vendor, not checked by the index.

- Positioning: The easiest way to add authentication and user management to your application. (https://clerk.com/)
- For: developers building authentication and user management into their application (https://clerk.com/)
- Price stated: Free for your first 50,000 monthly retained users and 100 monthly retained orgs. (https://clerk.com/)
- Starting price: 0 (https://clerk.com/pricing)
- Free plan or trial: Free for your first 50,000 monthly retained users and 100 monthly retained orgs. (https://clerk.com/)
- Certifications: SOC 2 Type II, CCPA, GDPR, HIPAA
- Customers named: Supabase, Vercel, Stripe, Replit

## What it publishes

Every page clerk.com exposes, read 2026-09-29: 3193 addresses. By kind, pages and the last 90 days:

- blog: 279 pages, 15 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-09-11
- conference or event: 215 pages, 63 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-09-28
- report or ebook: 640 pages, 78 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-09-28
- comparison: 24 pages, 12 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-07-09
- template or tool: 3 pages, 3 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-07-06
- glossary or explainer: 25 pages, 9 in the last 90 days, latest 2026-09-29
- Recent: 2026-09-29 glossary or explainer: Cipher suite https://clerk.com/glossary/cipher-suite
- Recent: 2026-09-29 glossary or explainer: Dkim https://clerk.com/glossary/dkim
- Recent: 2026-09-29 glossary or explainer: Dmarc https://clerk.com/glossary/dmarc
- Recent: 2026-09-29 glossary or explainer: Spf https://clerk.com/glossary/spf
- Recent: 2026-09-29 glossary or explainer: Identity provider https://clerk.com/glossary/identity-provider
- Recent: 2026-09-29 glossary or explainer: Service provider https://clerk.com/glossary/service-provider

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.