Auth0, a powerful authentication platform for organizations looking to move quickly
October 15, 2019

Auth0, a powerful authentication platform for organizations looking to move quickly

Eric Mason | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Auth0 Platform

Overall Satisfaction with The Okta Identity Cloud

We currently use Auth0 to connect our authentication providers to internal services. It was implemented by our backend team but it's currently being used company-wide to assist with authentication of users and APIs. Auth0 reduces the amount of development time needed to integrate authentication services in our organization and gives us peace of mind when it comes to security.
  • The Auth0 documentation provides plenty of examples and tutorials for users to get up and running quickly
  • Auth0 is very flexible, it has a lot of pre-build authentication methods but also allows you to customize your method of authentication if you need to build off an internal provider
  • The Auth0 user interface is generally intuitive and it has detailed logs to assist with auditing
  • Auth0 comes at a very competitive price-point if your platform doesn't require a huge number of users (the free tier alone could be sufficient for many)
  • Auth0 can be somewhat limiting if you want a lot of control over the design of your authentication flow. Custom branding can be done, but it may be limited depending on how you plan to integrate.
  • The Auth0 API documentation has proven confusing at times; a single API endpoint's behaviour will change based on inputs and configured settings (e.g. offline_access). Consequently fields that are advertised as being returned in a response might not be there or have different values if you miss a key detail and it can be difficult to debug when this happens. All information required is available in the documentation but requires some digging.
  • The toggle to switch tenants feels a bit odd, it works, but I've had a few instances where I didn't realize I was on a staging tenant looking for something that was on the production tenant. Not a big deal, just something to watch out for.
  • Auth0 is fast and easy to implement when compared to traditional authentication implementations; for us this has reduced the time needed to build and validate an authentication solution
  • Auth0 has helped boost our product's security credentials as it has achieved key compliance certificates, which assists with the sales appeal of our product
  • We haven't seen any direct negative impacts on ROI, but its user pricing would be a limiting factor if we wanted to expand its use to our larger end user base

Do you think The Okta Identity Cloud delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with The Okta Identity Cloud's feature set?

Yes

Did The Okta Identity Cloud live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of The Okta Identity Cloud go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy The Okta Identity Cloud again?

Yes

We haven't used any products that directly compete with Auth0; prior to using Auth0 our authentication solutions were built in house. Compared with our previous in house OAuth solutions the Auth0 solution was far faster and easier to implement. We've also learned a lot about authentication best practices as we've worked with Auth0 because they've written numerous articles and tutorials to assist with the understanding of authentication standards. If you build out your own solution you're likely to miss some of these important practices. Moreover, Auth0 provides a number of built-in auditing features that would otherwise be time consuming and error-prone to build out for every project.
Scenarios where Auth0 is well suited:
- Auth0 is great for companies with a small user base, who don't require a heavy amount of customization in their login experience
- Projects that require fast iteration (e.g. you don't want to re-implement the OAuth spec every project)
- Enterprises that want peace of mind with authentication security (again it reduces the risk of you re-implementing an authentication standard in an insecure fashion)

Scenarios where Auth0 is less appropriate:
- The Auth0 price point (quickly increasing based on monthly active users) is limiting for startups that are strapped for cash who expect fast growth in user base. Consequently, it may not be a great tool for companies with a large base of free users.

The Okta Identity Cloud Feature Ratings

ID-Management Access Control
9
ID Management Single-Sign On (SSO)
10
Multi-Factor Authentication
9
Password Management
9
Account Provisioning and De-provisioning
8
ID Management Workflow Automation
9
ID Risk Management
9

The Okta Identity Cloud Support

There isn't a clear method to get a hold of support when trouble arises if you're on their standard plan. You can file a support ticket and they generally are responsive. I've often been able to find similar questions to the questions I've had when it comes to support in their ticket history, however, some have been closed without a satisfactory conclusion for the original poster.

Integrating The Okta Identity Cloud