What is GoTrue used for?

GoTrue is Netlify's small Go API for user registration and authentication in Jamstack projects, based on OAuth2 and JWT. It is a good fit for authentication for Jamstack sites and self-hosted JWT login service.

Is GoTrue open source?

Yes. GoTrue is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at netlify/gotrue and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. GoTrue is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host GoTrue?

Yes. GoTrue can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is GoTrue an alternative to?

GoTrue is an open-source alternative to Auth0. Other open-source alternatives to Auth0 include Supabase Auth, Ory Kratos and Authorizer.

Is GoTrue actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to GoTrue was on 2 September 2026, and the latest release is v1.0.1, published on 9 February 2022. The project has 4.5k stars on GitHub.

GoTrue: open-source alternative to Auth0

About GoTrue

GoTrue is a small open-source API written in Go that can run as a standalone service for user registration and authentication in Jamstack projects. It is based on OAuth2 and JSON Web Tokens and handles user signup, authentication, and custom user data. It was created by Netlify and is released under the MIT license.

It is configured through a .env file, environment variables, or both, with environment variables prefixed by GOTRUE taking precedence. Settings include required values such as the site URL used to build links in emails, and an operator token for multi-instance mode. The project has been very influential: Supabase's Auth server began from this codebase and later diverged significantly.

GoTrue suits developers who want to run their own authentication API for static sites and single-page apps rather than depend on a hosted identity provider. Anyone starting fresh may want to compare it with its actively developed descendants.

Key features

User signup and authentication API
OAuth2 and JWT based
Custom user data support
Configuration by .env file or environment variables
Multi-instance mode with operator token
Standalone Go service

Good fit for

→Authentication for Jamstack sites
→Self-hosted JWT login service

Built with: Go
Tags: authentication; jwt; oauth2; go; jamstack; netlify; user-management; self-hosted

GoTrue: questions and answers

What is GoTrue used for?: GoTrue is Netlify's small Go API for user registration and authentication in Jamstack projects, based on OAuth2 and JWT. It is a good fit for authentication for Jamstack sites and self-hosted JWT login service.
Is GoTrue open source?: Yes. GoTrue is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at netlify/gotrue and is written mainly in Go.
Is GoTrue free?: Yes. GoTrue is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host GoTrue?: Yes. GoTrue can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is GoTrue an alternative to?: GoTrue is an open-source alternative to Auth0. Other open-source alternatives to Auth0 include Supabase Auth, Ory Kratos and Authorizer.
Is GoTrue actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to GoTrue was on 2 September 2026, and the latest release is v1.0.1, published on 9 February 2022. The project has 4.5k stars on GitHub.