There has been a dichotomy for several years: generic adapters are $2-$5, while proprietary adapters are $20-$50. It's not due to the BOM cost of the chip, which is probably less than the cost of the copper. This might be the first mainstream adapter with a chip, other than PL2302-based USB-serial adapters, that are cheap.
http://m.ebay.com/itm/131250380700
http://m.ebay.com/itm/111573913018
Some are actually better than Apple, the braided lightning cables are a lot harder to break. You can even get them with LEDs if that's you thing.
In my experience they work just as well, but quality can sometimes really vary. I hope this leads to cheap clones from reputable manufacturers who have high quality standards.
http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=...
http://gizmodo.com/5954542/china-finally-cracks-apples-secre...
I'm using a cable now that looks exactly the same as an official Apple one and works just as well (iPhone 5S iOS 8.2).
Generic clones can be of awesome quality or complete garbage Non-generic stuff tends to offer much more consistency, which I think is what you pay (though there are plenty of cases where it's not worth it).