Clever alternative
An open-source alternative to Clever.
Drop-in OAuth 2.0 compatibility means your downstream apps keep working through the cutover. Free for K-12 districts. Self-hostable. AGPL-3.0.
Read the code on GitHub .
Nothing breaks
Your apps don't notice the switch.
Chalk exposes Clever-shaped OAuth 2.0 compatibility endpoints — the same authorize, token, and user-info contract your apps already implement. Existing integrations point at Chalk and keep working, with no vendor-side code change required.
01
Dry-run preview
Chalk pulls the canonical roster from your SIS (PowerSchool, Skyward, or Infinite Campus) via OneRoster 1.1 and shows you exactly what would change before anything moves.
02
Run side-by-side
Repoint apps at Chalk's Clever-compat endpoints one at a time. Clever and Chalk run in parallel during cutover; you validate each app against a real test student before declaring it done.
03
Cutover
Flip the switch. Chalk's wizard tracks which apps are migrated and which are still on Clever.
Every district's app inventory is different. Talk to us about your specific app inventory .
Why switch
Why districts are leaving Clever.
The "free" you signed up for is changing
Clever was historically free to districts; the district side of the model is now monetized. MFA is a paid add-on at $1.50–$4.00 / staff / mo [Vendr marketplace, verified May 2026] . Some apps in Clever's library carry premium per-student fees ( Per-student fees [SoftwareAdvice (district reviews), verified May 2026] ). Onboarding and training runs $2,000–$10,000 [Vendr marketplace, verified May 2026] .
The deeper cost is the hidden vendor tax. Clever's core model brokers data between districts and app vendors; vendors pay for that access and bake it into their per-student SaaS pricing — so districts pay for Clever indirectly, through every SaaS line item that integrates with it.
Ownership
Who owns Clever now
- Clever was acquired by Kahoot in May 2021 (~$500M). [Source]
- Kahoot was taken private in 2023–2024 in a ~$1.7B deal led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management's private-equity arm, with General Atlantic and KIRKBI (LEGO Group) as co-investors. [Source]
An independent M&A analyst has publicly questioned whether the new private-equity ownership will continue offering Clever to schools for free indefinitely.
Your district's identity provider is now owned by a private-equity consortium. The terms that are free today are set by owners whose incentives changed.
Single point of failure
When Clever is down, every app that signs in through it is unreachable — a recurring complaint in district reviews. Chalk's self-hosted SAML 2.0 IdP option means your district is its own identity provider; no third-party outage can take your sign-in down.
Side by side
Chalk vs Clever
A direct side-by-side. Rows where Chalk has a gap are shown honestly.
| Capability | Chalk | Clever |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to district | Free (software). Optional paid hosting. | Free base + paid MFA, premium-app fees, onboarding. |
| Open source | Yes (AGPL-3.0) | No |
| Self-host option | Yes | No |
| Data ownership | District-controlled (self-host) or Chalk-hosted | Brokered through Clever |
| Identity provider | District is its own IdP (self-hosted SAML) | Dependent on Clever uptime |
| Rostering standard | OneRoster 1.1 + REST API + webhooks | Proprietary + OneRoster |
| Ownership | Independent (AdminRemix LLC) | PE-owned (Goldman Sachs AM consortium via Kahoot) |
| Migration path | Drop-in OAuth compat + wizard | — |
Feature parity
Your Clever features, mapped to Chalk.
A capability-by-capability mapping so you can audit parity against your current Clever deployment.
Timeline
What a Clever→Chalk migration looks like.
Identity migrations almost always happen between June and August so you're live before the first bell of the new school year. The dry-run + parallel-run pattern means you can validate everything before any student loses access. Talk to us early in your summer window — book a migration call and we'll size the timeline against your specific app inventory.
Trust
Built to be auditable.
Open code, district-owned data, and the kind of operational transparency that survives a procurement review.
Open source (AGPL-3.0)
Read every line. Audit the security model. Fork it if you ever need to.
Self-host option
Run Chalk inside your district's infrastructure. Roster data never leaves your control.
Per-tenant key isolation
AES-256 at rest, per-tenant encryption keys, no-downtime key rotation.
Audit logs + DPA
Full admin audit trail. Data Processing Agreement available on request.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Will my apps actually keep working when I leave Clever?
Chalk exposes the same OAuth 2.0 authorize/token/refresh flow Clever does, with payload shapes that match. Apps that authenticate against Clever today repoint at Chalk and keep working. The parallel-run pattern lets you validate one app at a time before cutover.
Is Chalk really free? What's the catch?
The software is free under AGPL-3.0. Hosting is free for K-12 districts (we cover infra). The business model is funded by the vendor marketplace, not by district fees. See /pricing.
Open source — who supports it when something breaks at 6am on opening day?
Honest answer: a commercial support tier is on the roadmap. In the meantime, talk to us directly — we work with every district through their first cutover.
Can a small vendor be trusted with student PII?
You don't have to take our word for it. Self-host and the data never leaves your infrastructure. Audit the code on GitHub. Read our security posture at /security. DPA available on request.
What about Clever-only apps in our inventory?
Most app integrations use standard OAuth 2.0 with predictable payload shapes; those work out of the box. Send us your app list and we'll tell you honestly which are covered and which need a workaround.
Test the Clever-compat endpoints free.
Spin up a free Chalk tenant in minutes and validate one app against our Clever-compatibility endpoints before you commit to a cutover.