The cloud, IT networks and web portals often combine to create a dangerous identity crisis. With no central way to manage identities, businesses lose precious security and productivity. Identity and access management (IAM) makes it faster and easier for employees to access the data and applications they need without compromising security. Here’s a detailed look at two IAM solutions, Auth0 and OneLogin, and choose the winner based on their respective strengths.
Auth0
Auth0 is a robust authentication and authorization management platform available for the web, IoT, and mobile devices. The platform is universal and supports many contexts, such as business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and business-to-employee. Auth0 provides adaptive multi-layer security and has a robust architecture to improve security.
OneLogin
OneLogin’s secure and straightforward identity management gives peace of mind and enables access to your business apps for employees, customers, and partners. OneLogin simplifies identity management by providing users instant one-click access to all of your enterprise cloud and on-premises applications. OneLogin also allows IT administrators to enforce policies and instantly disable employee access to apps when they leave or change roles.
Comparative Overview of Features Offered by Auth0 and OneLogin
| Features | Auth0 | OneLogin |
| Access Certification | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Access Controls/Permissions | Yes | Yes |
| Access Management | Yes | Yes |
| Activity Dashboard | Yes | Yes |
| Alerts/Notifications | Yes | Yes |
| Authentication | Yes | Yes |
| Audit Management | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic User/Device Recognition | Yes | Yes |
| Behavioral Analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Compliance Management | Yes | Yes |
| Credential Management | Yes | Yes |
| Data Security and Verification | Yes | Yes |
| Employee Management | Yes | Yes |
| Endpoint Management | No | Yes |
| Event Logs | Yes | Yes |
| HIPAA Compliant | Yes | Yes |
| Identity Federation | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile Authentication | Yes | Yes |
| Monitoring | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-Factor Authentication | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple Authentication Methods | Yes | Yes |
| Password Management | Yes | Yes |
| Policy Management | No | Yes |
| Privileged Account Management | Yes | Yes |
| Real-Time Notifications | Yes | Yes |
| Remote Access/Control | Yes | Yes |
| Reporting/Analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Role-Based Permissions | Yes | Yes |
| Rules-Based Workflow | Yes | Yes |
| Secure Login | Yes | Yes |
| Self Service Portal | Yes | Yes |
| Self-Service Access Request | Yes | Yes |
| Single Sign-On | Yes | Yes |
| Social Sign-On | Yes | Yes |
| Third-Party Integrations | Yes | Yes |
| Two-Factor Authentication | Yes | Yes |
| Unified Directory | Yes | Yes |
| User Management | Yes | Yes |
| User Provisioning | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing Plans | Free plan – up to 7000 users and unlimited
  logins     B2C Essentials – $23/mo     B2C Professional – $240/mo |
Free plan – 30 days – includes cloud directory,
  custom reports, MFA, and VPN     Advanced – $4 per user/mo     Professional – $8 per user per month |
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Auth0 vs. OneLogin: Who Wins?
Auth0 builds a powerful software product for flagship products with a web-based dashboard that users can access through a web browser with scalable, trusted user authentication and authorization methods. It can be used for both testing and development.
On the other hand, with OneLogin’s service, you’ll be able to access all your ID management needs, including multi factor authentication, mobile applications for the user portal, and multiple security policies. Their system will automatically keep up with any new users or changes made to existing profiles.
Setup and Configuration
OneLogin Active Directory
OneLogin is easy to set up and doesn’t require professional help. Initially, you should select a subdomain for your business or organization. The interface is clean and sleek. The most basic function of OneLogin is to add passwords and share access, which can be found in the menu bar on the upper side of the screen.
Auth0 Dashboard with Menu Bar on The Left
Auth0 offers multiple authentication options, including a server-to-server flow that is perfect for securing an API. Whether you’re looking for an API or documentation, Auth0 provides clear and concise information to help you pick the best flow. They’ve also got detailed diagrams and concise explanations to help you better understand how to implement the features, so you can create the most secure API possible.
One significant area where Auth0 underscores is the unavailability of admin options via API, making it challenging to fully automate Auth0. Inability to access permissions is another issue apart from no token exchange support and no metrics.
Winner: Auth0
Data Encryption and Authentication
Multifactor Authentication Interface in Auth0
Auth0 offers quick and easy ways to sign up and log in to your application. OneLogin also has an SDK that can be customized to match your needs for multiple factors of authentication. Auth0 offers a simple, quick, and customizable widget and is available in two different forms: Lock and Auth0widget. The Lock and the Auth0 widgets have customization options that set them apart from competitors. The Lock allows you to add custom registration fields and save them to a user’s metadata. The Auth0 features a central login page with a fully-featured user management system. You have complete control over the interface.
However, sometimes Auth0 fails to reflect the latest changes in time, causing a considerable delay. Also, it lacks the required flexibility for branding pages/emails and custom domains in white-label applications.
Mappings in OneLogin
OneLogin’s security is multifaceted. It has added multifactor authentication to the system, which means no one can access data without your knowledge. One of the most common and predominant is traditional two-factor authentication, which uses OTPs and security questions to identify authorized users. OneLogin also supports third-party verification software integrations like Google Authenticator, Yubico, Duo Security, RSA SecureID to tighten security. It also offers mobile biometric authentication for a safer entry.
Winner: OneLogin
Running Servers and Adding Users
OneLogin Options for Social Sign-ons and Setting Passwords
OneLogin is a cloud-based platform. The company does not need to host any computers to run the domain. Everything is taken care of by OneLogin. That should make it easy to set up your domain name. After you pick your domain, you can start adding users. The process can be done manually or by importing them from your company’s directory services. Every user added to OneLogin will get an email with a link that they can change later.
Auth0 Custom Database Action Scripts
The Auth0 platform makes it much easier to manage and create custom profile fields, so your company can extend user profiles with custom properties. Create a custom property for a user profile schema first, then use the Profile Editor in the Admin UI or the Schemas API to manage this extension.
However, Auth0 is unable to track the updates because it has a flexible schema for user profile objects.
Winner: OneLogin
Deployment and Integration of Applications
SAML Generation in OneLogin
OneLogin enables you to add an unlimited number of applications. These can be found in the admin page, where there is a directory of thousands of apps that are readily available to add. You can also integrate your own set of applications if compatible with SAML or the application APIs. OneLogin is very independent with its own security groups. Groups are used to assign security policies to the people they contain, while roles are used for assigning applications. You can assign users to OneLogin groups, either manually or through automation tools; Mappings is an example of one.
Choosing an Application Type in Auth0
Auth0’s community supports integration with ember-simple-auth, and Auth0 officially supports a Passport strategy. The best part about Auth0 is that they offer a lock.js package, a batteries-included sign-in solution for straightforward use cases. You can customize your callback page from the Auth0 web console and roll your own authentication solution through their client-side SDK. With the convenience of OIDC, you can sign in to sites with one account. Auth0 has an excellent library of SAML documentation and offers innovative integrations for SAML. As an authentication protocol, it can be used both as your service provider and your identity provider.
On the downside, once the connection link is established with a token through SMS, the user needs to refresh to ensure the change is reflected. Moreover, the documentation is sometimes outdated in several areas, which can mislead the user.
Winner: Auth0
Reporting and Portal Experience
Configuration for Identity and Access Management in OneLogin
OneLogin has a powerful reports engine, which can also be customized. Reports can be cloned and customized to your liking. There are several canned reports, but you can also create new ones from scratch. Reports can even be grouped by their type or configuration. OneLogin integrates seamlessly with security event manager (SEIM) solutions like Splunk. Businesses can configure broadcasters to send JSON payloads through the URL, available to be consumed by any other websites configured to take in data. It is also easy to set up alerts triggered when someone’s password is changed.
Security Dashboard and Logins in Auth0
Auth0 includes customizable features for branding and rule sets. It offers dozens of tutorials and multi-language API docs with interactive examples. The pre-populated credentials and tutorials make this an easy system to customize.
Auth0 does not support versioning, but it has a system that prevents the previous version of a hosted page or rule-set from ever getting changed. It eventually makes it difficult to create custom logins
Winner: OneLogin
Features and Benefits of Auth0
With Auth0, Single Sign-On becomes simple for enterprises. Enterprise can give its customers, employees, and partners the freedom of SSO while still maintaining control and security. With SSO, users have the ease of signing-in only once and use all the apps they’re authorized for. Whether through traditional username-password login or enterprise federation login, users will always have access to the apps.
Security
There’s no question that user data is something businesses need to be concerned about when it comes to security. Fortunately, companies like Auth0 have solved the problem. The OAuth 2.0 authentication protocol provides Auth0 security, eliminating the need to trust login and password information from the app.
User-interface Options
With Auth0, iOS and Android developers can use their own custom UI. Built-in login flows are available for either browser-based or native applications. When you use the browser-based UI, users are redirected to the Auth0 login page. However, when you use the native login flow in your app, the user registration process happens there too.
Analytics
Auth0 provides powerful tools for tracking users and recognizing specific events. By integrating Auth0’s Analytics, businesses can capture and measure events such as the number of new and existing users, the number of new registrations during the current day, login activity in the past year, and the identity providers utilized for logins.
Less Time in implementing SSO
It takes just under a month to implement SSO with Auth0, comparatively a lot less time to build any such platform. Enterprises can use Universal Login to authenticate their own unified login on a centralized authentication server. This protects users from phishing and other attacks by not moving their credentials around different websites.
Convenient Protective Measures
Breached password detection and multifactor authentication help protect users and their credentials and notify if their credentials get leaked in a 3rd party data breach. Users can download the Guardian app and verify login requests, and allow or deny them at their convenience.
Disadvantages of Auth0
Price point can be an issue with their more extensive plans, but they have a startup plan, which helps big time. Developer plans start at $23/month and do not include all features. The UI can be difficult to use in certain situations, in particular, when the size of the screen decreases or when code editors are cut off.
Features and Benefits of OneLogin
Integrated Apps
OneLogin comes with pre-integrated apps. It works for any application or service that requires a form-based login. If a company chooses to use OneLogin as their access management provider, any employees who log in to OneLogin will be navigated to the specific app they need.
Sync with Directories
OneLogin stores your login credentials in the cloud and sync with other directories such as Active Directory, LDAP, and Google Apps. That way, when a new user is added to your organization or changes to existing profiles are made, all of this information is imported into OneLogin automatically.
Sandbox
OneLogin provides a sandbox that mirrors production environments. This makes it easy for customers to test the new applications and mappings they are interested in integrating into their production environment.
AD Mapping
OneLogin’s Active Directory mappings engine enables administrators to utilize all the directory attributes from AD. For example, admins can leverage any profile field to trigger authentication behavior. OneLogin’s AD mappings engine leaves all the possibilities open.
Disadvantages of OneLogin
There are no administrative APIs to help create or set up a new connector when building a new connector. It needs manual operation, which is inefficient and time-consuming. The interface for your connector is also limited at the moment. For example, you can’t edit your company’s logo or change the page’s background color. It hampers utilizing the platform for communication or even organizing the space.
Conclusion
The pricing for OneLogin is roughly the same as most competitors, but it offers a free tier. There are limitations to the free tier, though. The starter tier costs $2 per month, includes MFA, and connects to unlimited SaaS applications through SSO. In addition, the starter tier offers the ability to reset passwords. For more security, you’ll need to pay $4 per user per month for Enterprise level. There is also the unlimited top-level tier at $8 per user per month, which will provide both customizable fields and automatic user provisioning in SaaS applications.
The free trial for Auth0 software is excellent, but the pricing scales with the number of users. Developer-level features are available for $23/month or $253/year for 1,000 active users. Developer Pro includes an increased monthly or yearly charge of $130 for features available to 500 active users and 5,000 machine-to-machine tokens.
Based on the features and pricing, OneLogin scores over Auth0 in two more areas of functionalities – policy management and endpoint management. However, with AuthO, the pricing can become unpredictable as the business progresses with scalability. Organizations may end up paying for features they don’t need.
Overall Winner: OneLogin
MORE ON ENTERPRISE IDENTITY AUTHENTICATION:
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Why Identity Orchestration Remains the Missing Piece in the Access Management Puzzle
What Is Multi-Factor Authentication? Definition, Key Components, and Best Practices
Which among Auth0 and OneLogin would you prefer as your organization’s primary identity & access management solution? Tell us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!
Disclaimer:Â Unless stated otherwise, any information provided in this review does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement for the products listed in the article. All information in this article is provided in good faith, however we make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of products that are reviewed. The viewpoints expressed within the content are solely the author’s and do not reflect the views of Spiceworks Ziff Davis or its affiliates.