Lucia Auth: An Auth.js alternative for Next.js authentication

Authentication is crucial for web applications, and choosing between Auth.js (formerly NextAuth.js) and Lucia Auth can impact development in the Next.js ecosystem. Auth.js is known for its rich feature set, ease of use, and quick setup, offering built-in providers and a plugin system that abstracts much of the authentication complexity. It supports both database and JWT-based sessions, but when using credentials, it only supports JWT sessions. On the other hand, Lucia Auth emphasizes simplicity, flexibility, and type safety, providing developers with building blocks for customized authentication solutions that require storing sessions in a database. While Lucia allows for explicit session management and customization, Auth.js simplifies the process with more automated session handling. Both libraries have their pros and cons depending on project needs, with Lucia offering a cleaner slate on GitHub in terms of issues, whereas Auth.js has numerous open issues, some related to edge cases and less popular providers.