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Authentication & SSO
Authentication & SSO

Authentication & SSO Guides

Explore the world of authentication and SSO, and learn how to protect your users following industry best practices.

Authentication vs. authorization

Authentication and authorization are often interwined, but refer to completely different things. This post breaks down the difference and explores difference schemes for each.

The developer’s guide to SSO

Adding SSO to your app is a common requirement for selling to enterprise customers. Here’s a guide that will help you understand SSO and choose the best way to add it to your app.

UI/UX best practices for IdP & SP-Initiated SSO

Explore the UI/UX best practices for IdP and SP-initiated SSO flows, like subdomaining tenants and separating email and password screens.

What is SAML and how does it work?

In this article, you’ll learn what SAML is, how you can set it up, and what other options you have to provide similar functionality and support SSO for your customers.

The developer's guide to user management

Developer resource for modern day user management, including 101 topics like SSO and MFA as well as more advanced concepts like identity linking, email verification, and JIT provisioning.

A guide to organization modeling

Learn what organizational modeling is and how to implement it, as well as explore the complexities of supporting SSO in a multi-organizational model.

What is MFA, and why does your app need it?

Learn what MFA stands for, and why your app needs it.

OpenID Connect vs. SAML

Exploring the differences between OIDC and SAML, how they function, and how to choose which one to support.

What are JSON Web Tokens (JWTs)?

Learn what JWTs are, how they work and what you can use them for.

SAML vs OAuth: A technical guide

Exploring the differences between SAML and OAuth, how they function, and how to choose which one to support.

What is authentication (authN)?

Authentication (authN) is the process of verifying the identity of users or systems before granting access to resources, essential for ensuring security in applications. This blog explores various authN methods like passwords, multi-factor authentication, and biometrics, and discusses the trade-offs of building in-house or using third-party providers..

Managing SAML X.509 Certificates

In this article, we’ll dive into what SAML X.509 certificates are, their role in your SAML Single Sign-On (SSO) connections, and best practices for managing these to ensure there is no downtime for your enterprise customers.

The developer’s guide to auth sessions

Learn what sessions are and how you can implement them from scratch or using an auth provider like WorkOS.

What is OpenID Connect (OIDC)?

Learn what OpenID Connect (OIDC) is, how it works, and when you should use it.

What is Single Logout?

Learn what single logout is, its benefits, why it's important, and why it has such limited support.

JWT validation: how-to and best libraries to use

Learn about JSON Web Token (JWT) validation, why it’s important, what the best practices are, and how to do it using trusted third-party libraries.

Common SAML security vulnerabilities and how to defend against them

Review some of the common SAML security vulnerabilities and see how you can defend against them.

Best practices for CLI authentication: A technical guide

Learn how to securely authenticate users accessing your service through a command-line tool, enabling safe, scriptable workflows across terminals, machines, and Docker containers.

SSO best practices

SSO is necessary if you want to sell to enterprise customers, but doing it well is hard. We gathered some best practices that can help you with that.

What is multitenant authentication?

Learn how to build and scale authentication systems that serve multiple enterprise customers. This guide explores key concepts in multitenant authentication, from managing organization-specific SSO and security policies to avoiding common pitfalls.

Authentication glossary

A glossary of terms and definitions for all things related to authentication.

What is federated identity?

Learn what federated identity is, how it works, its pros and cons, and how it differs from SSO and social logins.

Decoding and solving the five most common SAML errors

Discover how to solve the top five SAML errors, complete with practical troubleshooting tips.

How to migrate enterprise SSO connections from Auth0 to WorkOS

A step-by-step technical guide to migrating enterprise SAML and OIDC connections from Auth0 to WorkOS in 9 steps.