Database

Better Auth uses a SeaORM DatabaseConnection for auth persistence.

The supported public path is:

Create a DatabaseConnection.
Run the built-in auth migrations.
Pass the connection to BetterAuth::new(config).database(...).

Setup

use better_auth::{run_migrations, AuthConfig, BetterAuth};
use better_auth::store::{Database, DatabaseConnection};
use better_auth::plugins::EmailPasswordPlugin;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let database = Database::connect("sqlite::memory:").await?;
    run_migrations(&database).await?;
    let auth_database: DatabaseConnection = database.clone();

    let auth = BetterAuth::new(
        AuthConfig::new("your-very-secure-secret-key-at-least-32-chars-long")
            .base_url("http://localhost:3000"),
    )
    .database(auth_database)
    .plugin(EmailPasswordPlugin::new().enable_signup(true))
    .build()
    .await?;

    // Keep using `database` for your app's own tables and queries.
    println!("plugins: {:?}", auth.plugin_names());
    Ok(())
}

PostgreSQL

For production, pass a PostgreSQL connection string to SeaORM and then run the same migrations:

use better_auth::{run_migrations};
use better_auth::store::Database;

let database = Database::connect("postgresql://user:pass@localhost:5432/mydb").await?;
run_migrations(&database).await?;

Repo-local tests use SQLite through the same DatabaseConnection API plus run_migrations. The dual-server and client SDK compatibility checks still validate behavior against the TypeScript reference server.

Notes

run_migrations records Better Auth schema state in the better_auth_migrations table so it can coexist cleanly with your app's own SeaORM migrator history.
MemoryCacheAdapter is still available for cache/rate-limit use cases. It is separate from database persistence.

Database

Setup

PostgreSQL

Testing

Notes

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