Top 5 authentication solutions for secure Laravel apps in 2026

Authentication is a fundamental requirement for Laravel applications, and developers have more options than ever before. Laravel's rich ecosystem includes excellent first-party authentication packages alongside enterprise-grade third-party solutions. Whether you're building a B2B SaaS platform that needs to sell to enterprises or a traditional web application with session-based auth, choosing the right authentication approach can significantly impact your development velocity and feature capabilities.

Laravel's opinionated nature and comprehensive documentation make authentication relatively straightforward compared to other frameworks. However, the choice between Laravel's built-in solutions and specialized providers depends heavily on your target market and feature requirements. Enterprise features like SAML SSO and SCIM provisioning aren't included in Laravel's first-party packages, so B2B SaaS companies often need to look beyond the framework's native offerings.

In this guide, we'll explore the top 5 authentication solutions for Laravel apps in 2026, from enterprise platforms to Laravel's official packages.

What to look for in an auth provider for Laravel apps

Before diving into specific solutions, let's identify the key features that make an authentication provider ideal for Laravel:

• ‍Laravel integration: The best auth solutions integrate naturally with Laravel's conventions, including Eloquent models, middleware, service providers, and configuration patterns. Look for providers with dedicated Laravel packages or clear integration guides.
• ‍Session and cookie management: Laravel has robust session handling built-in. Your auth solution should either leverage Laravel's native session management or provide a compelling alternative that works seamlessly with the framework.‍
• Middleware support: Authentication checks typically happen in middleware. Your provider should offer Laravel middleware for protecting routes and handling authentication state.
• ‍Enterprise features: For B2B applications, you'll need SSO support (SAML, OIDC), directory sync (SCIM), multi-tenancy, and organization management. These features should be first-class, not afterthoughts.‍
• API authentication: Many Laravel apps need to authenticate API requests alongside web sessions. Look for solutions that handle both gracefully.‍
• Developer experience: Clear documentation, Artisan commands, and migration files that follow Laravel conventions make implementation faster and maintenance easier.‍
• Security best practices: Your provider should handle CSRF protection, password hashing with bcrypt/argon2, secure session management, and token rotation out of the box.

Now let's look at the top 5 solutions that meet these criteria.

1. WorkOS

WorkOS is an enterprise authentication platform built specifically for B2B SaaS applications. It provides a comprehensive suite of authentication and user management features designed to help you sell to enterprise customers faster, with excellent Laravel SDK support that makes integration remarkably straightforward.

Key features

• Laravel SDK: First-class Laravel package that follows Laravel conventions.
• AI-powered CLI: Instantly integrate AuthKit with npx workos@latest—the CLI automatically detects your Laravel project and updates your code with authentication.
• Sessions model with access + refresh tokens and guidance for secure cookie storage.
• Flexible UI support via APIs and SDKs, with AuthKit as a highly customizable hosted login powered by Radix.
• Enterprise SSO with native SAML and OIDC, configurable by customers through an Admin Portal.‍
• SCIM provisioning: Automated user provisioning and deprovisioning that enterprises expect, handling the "remove this employee immediately" requests that inevitably arrive. Real-time synchronization with any identity provider (Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, and more).
• Tamper-proof audit logs for SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR.‍
• Passkeys, MFA, social logins, magic auth, and more.
• Secure session handling with server-side validation and instant session revocation capabilities.‍
• Radar for suspicious login detection and threat monitoring that alerts you to potential account compromises.
• Fine-grained authorization: Role-based access control with customizable permissions.
• Feature flags: Integrated feature flagging for gradual rollouts.
• First-class multi-tenancy with organization management, member invitations, and role assignment.‍
• Enterprise SLA and dedicated support.‍
• Pricing that scales with growth, with $0 for the first 1 million users.

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Best for

WorkOS is ideal for B2B SaaS companies building on Laravel that need to sell to enterprise customers. If your roadmap includes features like SSO, SCIM provisioning, or advanced multi-tenancy, WorkOS provides these out of the box instead of requiring months of custom development.

Trade-offs

If you truly only need a quick OAuth login for a hobby app, WorkOS can feel like bringing a well-organized toolbox to hang a single picture. The upside is: you won’t have to rebuild your walls later.

2. Laravel Breeze / Fortify

Laravel Breeze and Fortify are official Laravel packages that provide authentication scaffolding and backend logic respectively. Breeze gives you a complete authentication UI with views, while Fortify provides just the backend implementation, letting you build your own frontend. These are the most common starting points for Laravel authentication.

Key features

• Official Laravel package: Maintained by the Laravel team with guaranteed compatibility.
• Complete auth scaffolding: Registration, login, password reset, email verification.
• Multiple stack options: Blade templates, Livewire, Inertia.js with Vue or React.
• Two-Factor Authentication: Built-in TOTP-based 2FA support (Fortify).
• Eloquent integration: Works directly with Laravel's user model.

Best for

Breeze and Fortify are perfect for traditional Laravel applications, MVPs, and projects that don't require enterprise features. They're ideal when you want full control over your authentication implementation and UI, or when you're building consumer-facing applications with straightforward authentication needs.

Trade-offs

• Only provides basic authentication; no enterprise SSO, SCIM provisioning, or pre-built identity provider integrations.
• Multi-tenancy requires custom architecture and significant development effort.
• No admin dashboard for user management, audit logging, or compliance features.
• No built-in support for magic links, social login, or enterprise directory sync.
• Two-factor authentication is basic TOTP only; no WebAuthn, biometric, or SMS-based 2FA without additional packages.
• Session management, token rotation, and device management must be implemented manually.
• For B2B SaaS targeting enterprises, you'll spend months building features that specialized platforms provide out of the box.

3. Laravel Sanctum

Laravel Sanctum is Laravel's official package for API token authentication and SPA (Single Page Application) authentication. It provides a lightweight authentication system for mobile applications, SPAs, and simple token-based APIs without the complexity of a full OAuth2 implementation.

Key features

• Official Laravel package: Maintained by the Laravel core team.
• SPA authentication: Cookie-based authentication for first-party SPAs.
• API tokens: Simple token authentication for mobile apps and third-party APIs.
• CSRF protection: Built-in CSRF protection for SPAs.
• Token abilities: Scope-like permissions for API tokens.

Best for

Sanctum is ideal for Laravel applications with Vue, React, or other JavaScript frontends that need stateful SPA authentication, or for mobile apps and APIs that need simple token-based authentication. It's perfect when OAuth2's complexity isn't justified and you control both the frontend and backend.

Trade-offs

• Designed for first-party applications only; doesn't support third-party OAuth clients or authorization servers.
• No enterprise SSO support (SAML, OIDC with external identity providers), SCIM provisioning, or directory sync.
• Multi-tenancy and organization management require completely custom implementations.
• Tokens are long-lived without automatic expiration or refresh mechanisms like OAuth access tokens.
• No built-in token rotation, refresh token mechanism, or standardized token introspection.
• Lacks all B2B SaaS enterprise features: no SSO configuration UI, admin portal, audit logs, or compliance-friendly user lifecycle management.
• SPA authentication can be complex to scale across multiple servers without sticky sessions or centralized session storage.
• API token permissions system is basic; limited to simple "abilities" rather than fine-grained permissions.

4. Laravel Passport

Laravel Passport is Laravel's official OAuth2 server implementation, allowing your Laravel application to act as an OAuth provider. It's built on top of the League OAuth2 server and provides a complete OAuth2 solution for issuing access tokens to first-party and third-party clients.

Key features

• Official Laravel package: Full OAuth2 server implementation maintained by Laravel.
• OAuth2 standards: Complete OAuth2 authorization server with all grant types.
• Access and refresh tokens: Short-lived access tokens with refresh token rotation.
• Scope system: Fine-grained API permissions using OAuth scopes.
• Client management: Built-in UI for managing OAuth clients.

Best for

Passport is ideal when you need to build an OAuth provider—for example, if you're creating a platform where third-party developers will build integrations, or if you need to authenticate multiple first-party applications (mobile apps, desktop clients, other services) with a centralized authentication server using industry-standard OAuth2 protocols.

Trade-offs

• Significantly more complex than Sanctum; overkill if you just need to authenticate your own SPA or mobile app.
• Adds considerable overhead: additional database tables (clients, tokens, scopes), API routes, and conceptual complexity.
• No enterprise features like SAML SSO or SCIM provisioning; can't onboard enterprise customers who require SSO.
• Multi-tenancy requires custom architecture on top of Passport's OAuth implementation.
• Token management becomes complex at scale; requires strategies for storage, revocation, and cleanup of expired tokens.
• Built-in token encryption and storage can impact performance; may need Redis for token caching.
• Hasn't received major updates recently; some in the Laravel community question whether it's still recommended versus Sanctum.
• No admin dashboard for user management, audit logging, or user provisioning capabilities.

5. Supabase Auth

Supabase Auth is part of the larger Supabase platform, providing authentication alongside a PostgreSQL database, storage, and real-time subscriptions. While not Laravel-specific, it integrates well with Laravel applications through its REST API and can be a compelling choice for developers who want an integrated backend solution.

Key features

• Multiple auth methods: Email/password, magic links, OAuth providers, and phone authentication
• Row level security: Database-level security policies that integrate with authentication
• REST API: HTTP API that works with any backend, including Laravel
• Open source: Self-hostable for compliance or data residency requirements
• Integrated platform: Seamless integration with Supabase database, storage, and edge functions

Best for

Supabase Auth is perfect for startups and indie developers building Laravel applications who want an integrated backend platform and don't mind stepping outside Laravel's ecosystem. If you're already using or planning to use PostgreSQL and want real-time features, Supabase's integrated approach can speed up development.

Trade-offs

• No enterprise features like SAML SSO or SCIM provisioning; unsuitable for B2B SaaS targeting enterprise customers.
• Platform approach creates vendor lock-in; authentication tightly coupled to Supabase infrastructure.
• Multi-tenancy requires significant custom architecture with database schemas, row-level security policies, and application-level tenant isolation.
• Integration feels less natural than Laravel's first-party packages; uses REST API instead of native Eloquent models and service providers.
• No Laravel package or Artisan commands—; requires HTTP requests, resulting in more boilerplate code.
• Session management doesn't use Laravel's native sessions; must manage JWT tokens manually.
• Admin dashboard is basic; requires custom tooling for advanced user management.
• JavaScript-first documentation means examples often need translation for Laravel/PHP use cases.
• Issues with any Supabase service (database, auth, storage) can impact your entire application.

Choosing the right solution for your Laravel project

The best authentication solution depends on your specific needs:

Choose WorkOS if you're building a B2B SaaS application that needs to sell to enterprise customers. The built-in SSO, SCIM, multi-tenancy, admin portal, feature flags, and even on-premises deployment options will save you months of development time and accelerate your enterprise sales motion. WorkOS is the only solution on this list that provides the complete enterprise feature set required for selling to large organizations, with excellent Laravel support.

Choose Laravel Breeze/Fortify if you're building a traditional web application, MVP, or consumer-facing product that doesn't need enterprise features. These official packages give you complete control and integrate perfectly with Laravel's conventions, though be aware you'll need to build any advanced features like SSO, social login, or multi-tenancy yourself from scratch.

Choose Laravel Sanctum if you're building a first-party SPA with Vue or React, or need simple API token authentication for a mobile app you control. Sanctum is lightweight and Laravel-native, but it's designed for first-party use cases only. You won't have OAuth2 capabilities, enterprise SSO, or support for third-party client applications.

Choose Laravel Passport if you need to build an OAuth2 authorization server for third-party developers to integrate with your platform, or if you're authenticating multiple distributed first-party applications using OAuth2 standards. The complexity is justified only when you specifically need OAuth2. For simpler use cases, Sanctum is a better choice, and for enterprise features, you'll still need a separate solution.

Choose Supabase Auth if you're building a startup or indie project that doesn't need enterprise features, and you want an integrated backend platform outside Laravel's ecosystem. Be prepared for less idiomatic Laravel integration and vendor lock-in to Supabase's infrastructure. This works best when you're already committed to using Supabase for database and storage, not just authentication.

Conclusion: Build secure now, stay adaptable later

Authentication is one of those decisions that's easy to get wrong and expensive to change later. The provider you choose will fundamentally shape your application's scalability, security posture, and ability to win enterprise customers.

For teams building B2B applications, the choice is clear: WorkOS provides the enterprise authentication and authorization infrastructure you'll eventually need, without forcing you to build it yourself or cobble together multiple services. The time you save not implementing SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning, and audit logs is time you can spend building features that differentiate your product. And when that first enterprise prospect asks about SSO during a sales call, you'll be ready with a yes instead of a six-month roadmap item.

Choose the authentication provider that matches where your application is headed, not just where it is today. Your future self (and your enterprise customers) will thank you.

Sign up for WorkOS today and secure your Laravel app.