📄 next-auth/v3/configuration/databases

File: databases.md | Updated: 11/15/2025

Source: https://next-auth.js.org/v3/configuration/databases

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🎉 NextAuth.js is now part of Better Auth !

This is documentation for NextAuth.js v3, which is no longer actively maintained.

For up-to-date documentation, see the **latest version ** (v4).

Version: v3

On this page

NextAuth.js comes with multiple ways of connecting to a database:

  • TypeORM (default)
    The TypeORM adapter supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, SQLite and MongoDB databases.
  • Prisma
    The Prisma 2 adapter supports MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite databases.
  • Fauna
    The FaunaDB adapter only supports FaunaDB.
  • Custom Adapter
    A custom Adapter can be used to connect to any database.

There are currently efforts in the nextauthjs/adapters repository to get community-based DynamoDB, Sanity, PouchDB and Sequelize Adapters merged. If you are interested in any of the above, feel free to check out the PRs in the nextauthjs/adapters repository!

This document covers the default adapter (TypeORM).

See the documentation for adapters to learn more about using Prisma adapter or using a custom adapter.

To learn more about databases in NextAuth.js and how they are used, check out databases in the FAQ .

How to use a database​

You can specify database credentials as as a connection string or a TypeORM configuration object.

The following approaches are exactly equivalent:

database: "mysql://nextauth:password@127.0.0.1:3306/database_name"

database: {  type: 'mysql',  host: '127.0.0.1',  port: 3306,  username: 'nextauth',  password: 'password',  database: 'database_name'}

tip

You can pass in any valid TypeORM configuration option .

e.g. To set a prefix for all table names you can use the entityPrefix option as connection string parameter:

"mysql://nextauth:password@127.0.0.1:3306/database_name?entityPrefix=nextauth_"

…or as a database configuration object:

database: {  type: 'mysql',  host: '127.0.0.1',  port: 3306,  username: 'nextauth',  password: 'password',  database: 'database_name',  entityPrefix: 'nextauth_'}

Setting up a database​

Using SQL to create tables and columns is the recommended way to set up an SQL database for NextAuth.js.

Check out the links below for SQL you can run to set up a database for NextAuth.js.

If you are running SQLite, MongoDB or a Document database you can skip this step.

Alternatively, you can also have your database configured automatically using the synchronize: true option:

database: "mysql://nextauth:password@127.0.0.1:3306/database_name?synchronize=true"

database: {  type: 'mysql',  host: '127.0.0.1',  port: 3306,  username: 'nextauth',  password: 'password',  database: 'database_name',  synchronize: true}

danger

The synchronize option should not be used against production databases.

It is useful to create the tables you need when setting up a database for the first time, but it should not be enabled against production databases as it may result in data loss if there is a difference between the schema that found in the database and the schema that the version of NextAuth.js being used is expecting.

Supported databases​

The default database adapter is TypeORM, but only some databases supported by TypeORM are supported by NextAuth.js as custom logic needs to be handled by NextAuth.js.

Databases compatible with MySQL, Postgres and MongoDB should work out of the box with NextAuth.js. When used with any other database, NextAuth.js will assume an ANSI SQL compatible database.

tip

When configuring your database you also need to install an appropriate node module for your database.

MySQL​

Install module: npm i mysql

Example​

database: "mysql://username:password@127.0.0.1:3306/database_name"

MariaDB​

Install module: npm i mariadb

Example​

database: "mariadb://username:password@127.0.0.1:3306/database_name"

Postgres / CockroachDB​

Install module: npm i pg

Example​

PostgresDB

database: "postgres://username:password@127.0.0.1:5432/database_name"

CockroachDB

database: "postgres://username:password@127.0.0.1:26257/database_name"

If the node is using Self-signed cert

database: {    type: "cockroachdb",    host: process.env.DATABASE_HOST,    port: 26257,    username: process.env.DATABASE_USER,    password: process.env.DATABASE_PASSWORD,    database: process.env.DATABASE_NAME,    ssl: {      rejectUnauthorized: false,      ca: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/server-certificates/root.crt').toString()    },  },

Read more: https://node-postgres.com/features/ssl

Microsoft SQL Server​

Install module: npm i mssql

Example​

database: "mssql://sa:password@localhost:1433/database_name"

MongoDB​

Install module: npm i mongodb

Example​

database: "mongodb://username:password@127.0.0.1:3306/database_name"

SQLite​

SQLite is intended only for development / testing and not for production use.

Install module: npm i sqlite3

Example​

database: "sqlite://localhost/:memory:"

Other databases​

See the documentation for adapters for more information on advanced configuration, including how to use NextAuth.js with other databases using a custom adapter .