Netlify finds the SSO & SCIM solution to deliver flexibility to the enterprise

The tech stack has evolved. The days of piecing disparate vendors together and taping over the gaps with code is long over.

Netlify represents the modern approach to web development. With its Composable Web Platform, it enables Enterprises to simplify content orchestration, streamline developer workflow, and improve website speed.

It helps companies like Google, Peloton, Twilio, Riot Games, and others to build, test, and deploy websites faster and more efficiently.

As Netlify onboarded more enterprises, they found the need to provide customers with an SSO solution that not only met stringent security requirements but also offered the flexibility to accommodate diverse enterprise organizational structures. WorkOS successfully addressed these needs, equipping Netlify with a solution that catered to both aspects efficiently. 

‍Finding an SSO solution flexible enough to accommodate the enterprise 

As a customer prepares to deploy a new website on Netlify, various team members - including developers, marketers, and designers - may review the content prior to its launch. However, these individuals typically have different permission levels that dictate the extent of their actions on the site getting built.

Netlify allows enterprises to assign different levels of permissions to various teams created within Netlify. For instance, an engineering team member might have the authority to deploy sites, a designer could be authorized to modify content, and a marketing team member might be limited to site previews and commenting without deployment capabilities. While Netlify's role management system facilitates these distinctions, challenges arose with team structures and SSO integration.

Enterprises faced limitations installing a single SSO solution that applied to all the various teams on Netlify. Instead, they had to individually install, manage, and update a separate SSO solution for each team. This meant that if a large enterprise had 10 different teams with different user permissions on Netlify, they had to install 10 different SSO instances, which detracted from the overall user experience.

Switching from a homegrown SSO solution to WorkOS

 Netlify built an SSO solution in-house but quickly found that developing and maintaining it was a lot more complex than expected. The resources required to add new identity providers (IdPs) and support directory management while getting ahead of customer requests was becoming impossible.

“We could support only so many identity providers with internal resources and needed to find a solution for SCIM provisioning for customers as well,” said Matt Rinehart, Staff Product Manager at Netlify. While Netlify was considering WorkOS to power their all-in-one SSO and SCIM solution, one incident made that switch to WorkOS happen a bit faster.

Netlify had encountered an error with their homegrown SSO solution. Despite having complete access to its legacy code, the transparency did not result in efficient debugging. Some of the engineers that had originally built the solution were no longer at the company, and the team realized the scaling limitations of maintaining a DIY solution. Off-loading all the headaches of provisioning SSO support to a provider like WorkOS known for its great developer reputation was beginning to make a lot more sense.

“I’m confident that with the partnership we’ve established with WorkOS, if we faced similar issues as we did with our in-house SSO solution, we would have received immediate support from the WorkOS team, and troubleshooting would have been effortless,” said Rinehart.

‍Building faster with quality documentation

Rinehart remarked, "The clarity and detail in WorkOS’ documentation allowed our team to deliver organization-level SSO and SCIM provisioning for our customers much faster than anticipated." The team, accustomed to less intuitive documentation from other vendors, was consistently impressed by the thoroughness and user-friendliness of WorkOS' materials. 

With a WorkOS-powered SSO solution in place, Netlify can focus more on its core business and less on maintenance of a homegrown solution. They can field SSO requests from customers with confidence knowing that WorkOS has the flexibility and product capability to accommodate unique enterprise needs.  

“We have enterprise customers that have very complex team structures and are successfully using the WorkOS integration today. We’ve all been impressed with WorkOS from day 1, and we’re happy to have them as a partner,” says Rinehart.