9 WebAuthn Server Implementation Libraries Compared

9 WebAuthn Server Implementation Libraries Compared

This post helps you find the right WebAuthn server library to offer passkeys. 9 libraries are compared and a strategy to find the right library is given.

Created: December 15, 2023

Updated: October 3, 2026

Table of Contents

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Key Facts

1. Introduction: WebAuthn Server Implementation

Providing secure and simple user authentication is a must-have for digital companies in 2024. Passkeys, as the new login standard, are the ideal solution to meet these needs. However, the enhanced user experience and security of passkeys for the user comes at a price when implementing them as a developer. The implementation difficulty stems from the fact that passkeys are relatively new - to users, but also to developers and that their implementation can be quite challenging compared to password-based authentication. In fact, you need at least four API endpoints for passkey authentication compared to one API endpoint for password authentication.

One of the core components on server side for providing passkey authentication is the WebAuthn server (green library part). For a comprehensive guide on how the WebAuthn server fits into the broader enterprise stack integration, see our dedicated article.

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In this blog post, we compare several WebAuthn server libraries / packages / SDKs, analyze differences and provide a recommendation for developers who are new to passkey implementation.

2. How Can I Implement Passkeys On My Own?

To better understand why a WebAuthn server library is needed in the first place, let's have a look at how passkeys can be implemented. In principle, there are two ways to integrate passkeys into websites and apps:

  1. Use a third-party passkey solution (e.g. Corbado)
  2. Implement passkeys on your own using one of the WebAuthn server libraries from below

Lets have a look how the do-it-yourself passkey implementation works. In a very basic setup, a mechanism to register (sign-up) and authenticate (login) is needed. Both processes, also called WebAuthn ceremonies, are handled differently, even though the overall flow follows a similar schema:

  1. The frontend (the browser) initiates a sign-up or login request and calls a backend API endpoint.
  2. The backend generates WebAuthn sign-up or login parameters. These are called PublicKeyCredentialCreationOptions and PublicKeyCredentialRequestOptions respectively. One of the most important parts of these WebAuthn parameters is the challenge. The WebAuthn parameters are then sent back to the frontend.
  3. The frontend receives these WebAuthn parameters and uses them to verify the user's identity using the local device authentication system (e.g. via Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello). In sign-up processes, a new public-private-key pair is created, the private key stored locally, while the public key is sent to the server. In login processes, the challenge is signed using the private key of the passkey and sent to another backend API endpoint.
  4. In sign-up processes, the backend receives the public key and stores it. In logins, the backend receives the signed challenge and verifies its integrity using the WebAuthn server.

Since every sign-up / login process involves these steps, the backend needs to keep track of users, passkeys and sign-up / login requests.

3. WebAuthn Server Backend Libraries: A Comparison

All of the analyzed WebAuthn server libraries provide the necessary functionalities to offer passkey authentication. Therefore, we paid special attention to the following criteria:

The following WebAuthn server libraries were analyzed (ordered by descending number of GitHub stars in December 2023):

3.1 TypeScript: SimpleWebAuthn


type UserModel = {
  id: string;
  username: string;
  currentChallenge?: string;
};

type Authenticator = {
  credentialID: Uint8Array;
  credentialPublicKey: Uint8Array;
  counter: number;
  credentialDeviceType: CredentialDeviceType;
  credentialBackedUp: boolean;
  transports?: AuthenticatorTransport[];
};

3.2 .NET: fido2-net-lib

3.3 Python: py_webauthn

3.4 Ruby: webauthn-ruby

3.5 Go: go-webauthn

3.6 Java: java-webauthn-server

3.7 Rust: webauthn-rs

4. Recommendations: Navigating the WebAuthn Library Landscape

Since most of the libraries are equally powerful and implement the WebAuthn standard, we recommend the following decision-tree:

5. How Corbado can help

Corbado Observe is the authentication observability layer that reports failures that occurred in the browser and never produced a request. It integrates with SimpleWebAuthn and py_webauthn and provides key insights on your authentication processes, allowing for better diagnostics and user experience improvements.

6. Conclusion

For almost every language or framework out there exists a well-established WebAuthn server library by now. You can choose based on familiarity with your stack or select a managed solution like Corbado if you want to avoid complexities in implementing WebAuthn yourself.