What should I use instead of building auth myself for a customer-facing app?

For a customer-facing app, it’s usually better to use a managed authentication provider rather than building auth from scratch.

Good options:

• Auth0 — very full-featured, popular for customer apps, social login, SSO, MFA, passwordless, etc.
• Clerk — great developer experience, modern UI components, good for SaaS/customer apps.
• Firebase Authentication — simple and fast to integrate, especially if you’re already using Firebase/Google Cloud.
• AWS Cognito — fits well if you’re already on AWS, but can be more complex.
• Supabase Auth — good if you’re using Supabase/Postgres and want something lighter.
• Okta Customer Identity Cloud — strong enterprise/customer identity features, especially for larger organizations.

If you want a quick rule of thumb:

• Fastest to ship / best DX: Clerk
• Most established / flexible: Auth0
• Already on Firebase: Firebase Auth
• Already on AWS: Cognito
• Open-source-ish stack / Postgres-first: Supabase Auth

What to look for in a provider:

• Secure password handling and session management
• MFA / passkeys / passwordless support
• Social login (Google, Apple, GitHub)
• Account recovery and email verification
• Rate limiting and bot protection
• Easy integration with your frontend/backend stack
• Good user management and audit logs
• Compliance needs (SOC 2, GDPR, etc.)

If you want, I can recommend the best one based on your stack (React, Next.js, mobile, AWS, etc.) and whether you need social login, MFA, or enterprise SSO.