What is our primary use case?
For the past two years, I have been working with Auth0 Platform for CIAM requirements, which is customer identity and access management.
Basically, for my requirement, we needed to have SSO implementation for in-house applications. We have two applications, one for partners and one for customers. Customers can log in, so it basically acted as the authentication platform for the application we hosted. This allows users who have multiple identity providers, such as Google, Facebook, or a Microsoft account, to use any of their own IDPs to log into the application we built.
For the customer requirement, we do have another tenant where the application itself has been hosted. For machine-to-machine communication, if a machine is required to connect with an external database or to understand how exactly to pull up records, we can get it done. This is also known as a lightweight directory authentication protocol.
Identity is majorly integrated based on accounts. Wherever there is a requirement for logging into an application or for having service-to-service communication, we cannot depend on the API. Sometimes it requires a real-time authentication protocol.
What is most valuable?
Auth0 Platform is especially helpful if you are dealing with a customer-facing application. It gives you a wide variety of integration possibilities. That is the advantage about Auth0 Platform that I see. It is very easy to integrate with in-house applications. It has a catalog of more than 3,000+ applications. If you want to integrate any one of them, it is pretty much straightforward.
The benefits are that the integration options are so strong. It is also very developer-friendly and provides us with SDKs and documentation. It is globally acclaimed, so there is no need to have fear about how the authentication works. We can claim everything because Auth0 Platform is so widely used as it is an Okta subsidiary product.
It basically has all the frameworks that have been established based on the current criteria and requirements. That is how it has very secure features.
The best part is the log management. We can have all of this in an integrated dashboard.
What needs improvement?
For API integration, sometimes it gets challenging, especially with custom applications, because you do not know exactly how the attributes need to be synced or what data exactly needs to be on the application end.
The cons of Auth0 Platform, as I mentioned, suppose you have a custom application and you need to have it integrated, the attribute mapping was a challenge for us in the initial days.
Other than that, for a security engineer or an IAM engineer, the major point is what happens if an application goes down and how the authentication flow error rates are handled. Sometimes the logs provided by Auth0 Platform do not help in understanding the root cause of the problem.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working for almost three years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Whenever we had integration requirements, we did not face anything. However, I have heard there could be downtimes. Auth0 Platform has a feature where you can see the uptime within their platform.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The app itself is for bigger scalability, and I have a positive review on that. It can accommodate thousands of customers without any delay or issue.
How are customer service and support?
The support team of Auth0 Platform is very incredible. Whenever you are purchasing the product, you will have their product team have an introduction with us. We will have a Slack channel or a CSM support agent.
I rate it an eight because sometimes there are delays in reaching back to us, but most of the time, they are on point. If you go to other support providers, their support has L1, L2, and L3 levels. However, with Auth0 Platform or Okta, or whatever product they own, whenever I raise a customer support ticket, they tend to close it within the L2 level.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Auth0 Platform is basically for customer-facing, B2C requirements, which is what we used.
Entrust B2C requires customization, which is very low compared to Auth0 Platform. Microsoft B2C is something of a Microsoft-oriented or dedicated product, so you can feel that Microsoft touch.
We have a partnership with Okta. I also think we also provide the same because if any customer is purchasing Auth0 Platform through us, we can also give it at a discounted rate for them, based on our partnership.
What other advice do I have?
For organizations who are opting for Auth0 Platform, I would highly recommend it. Apart from that, whenever you are integrating your self-hosted application, or any application that needs to be federated via customers, if they are facing any issues initially, finding the logs might be challenging. However, with experience or after a couple of calls with customer support, you will be all good.
Besides that, I have heard about the cost-effectiveness, as outsourcing with Auth0 Platform drastically changes the resource burden. It speeds up onboarding and reliability. It reduces the operational overhead, so that is the major thing.
Retail is one of them, and the other is the global food requirement. Exactly, the food industry and retail.
I would rate this review a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner