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Auth0 vs Stack Overflow: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Auth0 and Stack Overflow are two popular platforms used in the technology industry. While both of them serve different purposes, they have several key differences that set them apart. In this article, we will explore these differences and understand when to use each platform.

  1. User Authentication and Authorization: Auth0 is primarily focused on user authentication and authorization. It provides a comprehensive identity platform that allows developers to add authentication and authorization functionalities to their applications easily. On the other hand, Stack Overflow is a question and answer platform where users can ask questions, answer other users' queries, and engage in discussions. It does not offer built-in user authentication and authorization features like Auth0.

  2. Developer Resource vs Community-driven: Auth0 is a developer-focused platform that offers resources, documentation, and tools to help developers implement secure and scalable authentication mechanisms in their applications. It provides features like Single Sign-On (SSO), user management, and social login integration. In contrast, Stack Overflow is a community-driven platform where developers can find solutions to their coding problems by searching for existing questions and answers or by posting their own. It relies on the collective knowledge and expertise of its user community.

  3. Pricing Model: Auth0 operates on a subscription-based pricing model, where users pay based on the number of active users and specific features they require for their applications. On the other hand, Stack Overflow is a free platform for users to ask and answer questions. However, it offers paid advertising options for companies and businesses looking to reach a targeted developer audience.

  4. Customization and Control: Auth0 provides extensive customization options, allowing developers to tailor the authentication experience to match their application's look and feel. It offers features like customizable login pages, branding, and user interface elements. In contrast, Stack Overflow has a standardized interface and limited customization options since it is a community-driven platform.

  5. Security Features: Auth0 emphasizes security and provides various security features like multi-factor authentication (MFA), anomaly detection, and passwordless login options. It also ensures that all user data and credentials are secured and follows industry-standard security practices. Stack Overflow, on the other hand, focuses more on the quality and accuracy of the information provided by its community members and enforces guidelines and moderation to maintain the integrity of the platform.

  6. Ecosystem and Integrations: Auth0 offers a wide range of integrations with popular development frameworks, libraries, and services, making it easier for developers to incorporate authentication functionality into their applications. It supports various authentication protocols like OAuth, OpenID Connect, and SAML. Stack Overflow, being a knowledge-sharing platform, does not provide direct integrations with external services but allows developers to share code snippets and examples from different programming languages and frameworks.

In summary, Auth0 is a comprehensive identity platform focused on user authentication and authorization, providing extensive customization options and security features. Stack Overflow, on the other hand, is a community-driven question and answer platform where developers can find coding solutions and share knowledge.

Advice on Auth0 and Stack Overflow

We need to migrate our authentication system to an external solution. We have a Vue.js frontend and a set of Services (mostly in Python) that talk to each other through APIs. This platform is multitenant, having all tenants in the same DB (MongoDB) and discriminating between them with a parameter value. So I'll be grateful if someone can share their experiences with any of these three options!

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Replies (1)
Micha Mailänder
CEO & Co-Founder at Dechea · | 4 upvotes · 84K views
Recommends
on
Auth0Auth0FaunaFauna
at

If these three are your options, I would recommend going with Auth0. They have all functionality available as developer API (Okta e.g. not) so you can manage your instance with Infrastructure as code and can also easily add functionalities relatively easily with the API. They are also really powerful if we're talking about ABAC (Attribute based access control). You can also enrich your access token with custom claims from your MongoDB, that can be probably really useful, as you said that you're dealing with multi tenancy.

We're using Auth0 in combination with Fauna Fauna is a database, so it would challenge you're mongodb. But Faunadb is the first database that implemented a full end user ABAC system directly in the database. (And also a lot easier than the ABAC systems from Okta or Auth0). This helps us, to use Auth0 only as identity platform and doing all the authorization with enriched claims over Fauna. With that you can skip in a lot of the cases you're backend, and you can request directly from the frontend your database (Blazing fast). Also, you can replace in some years Auth0 a lot easier with some upcoming cheaper (Auth0 was bought by Okta for a hilarious price) and "easy to use" passwordless identity provider like Passage.id

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Needs advice
on
Auth0Auth0
and
PassportPassport

Currently, Passport.js repo has 324 open issues, and Jared (the original author) seems to be the one doing most of the work. Also, given that the documentation is not proper. Is it worth using Passport.js?

As of now, StackShare shows it has 29 companies using it. How do you implement auth in your project or your company? Are there any good alternatives to Passport.js? Should I implement auth from scratch?

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Replies (1)
Recommends
on
Auth0Auth0

I would recommend Auth0 only if you are willing to shell out money. You can keep up with their free version only for a very limited time and as per our experience as a growing startup where budget is an issue, their support was not very helpful as they first asked us to sign a commercial agreement even before helping us t o find out whether Auth0 fits our use case or not! But otherwise Auth0 is a great platform to speed up authentication. In our case we had to move to alternatives like Casbin for multi-tenant authorization!

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Decisions about Auth0 and Stack Overflow
Brent Maxwell
Migrated
from
Amazon CognitoAmazon Cognito
to
Auth0Auth0

I started our team on Amazon Cognito because I was a Solutions Architect at AWS and found it really easy to follow the tutorials and get a basic app up and running with it.

When our team started working with it, they very quickly became frustrated because of the poor documentation. After 4 days of trying to get all the basic passwordless auth working, our lead engineer made the decision to abandon it and try Auth0... and managed to get everything implemented in 4 hours.

The consensus was that Cognito just isn't mature enough or well-documented, and that the implementation does not cater for real world use cases the way that it should. I believe Amplify has made some of this simpler, but I would still recommend Auth0 as it's been bulletproof for us, and is a sensible price.

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Pros of Auth0
Pros of Stack Overflow
  • 69
    JSON web token
  • 31
    Integration with 20+ Social Providers
  • 20
    It's a universal solution
  • 20
    SDKs
  • 15
    Amazing Documentation
  • 11
    Heroku Add-on
  • 8
    Enterprise support
  • 7
    Great Sample Repos
  • 7
    Extend platform with "rules"
  • 4
    Azure Add-on
  • 3
    Easy integration, non-intrusive identity provider
  • 3
    Passwordless
  • 2
    It can integrate seamlessly with firebase
  • 2
    Great documentation, samples, UX and Angular support
  • 2
    Polished
  • 2
    On-premise deployment
  • 1
    Will sign BAA for HIPAA-compliance
  • 1
    MFA
  • 1
    Active Directory support
  • 1
    Springboot
  • 1
    SOC2
  • 1
    SAML Support
  • 1
    Great support
  • 1
    OpenID Connect (OIDC) Support
  • 257
    Scary smart community
  • 206
    Knows all
  • 142
    Voting system
  • 134
    Good questions
  • 83
    Good SEO
  • 22
    Addictive
  • 14
    Tight focus
  • 10
    Share and gain knowledge
  • 7
    Useful
  • 3
    Fast loading
  • 2
    Gamification
  • 1
    Knows everyone
  • 1
    Experts share experience and answer questions
  • 1
    Stack overflow to developers As google to net surfers
  • 1
    Questions answered quickly
  • 1
    No annoying ads
  • 1
    No spam
  • 1
    Fast community response
  • 1
    Good moderators
  • 1
    Quick answers from users
  • 1
    Good answers
  • 1
    User reputation ranking
  • 1
    Efficient answers
  • 1
    Leading developer community

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Cons of Auth0
Cons of Stack Overflow
  • 15
    Pricing too high (Developer Pro)
  • 7
    Poor support
  • 4
    Rapidly changing API
  • 4
    Status page not reflect actual status
  • 3
    Not welcoming to newbies
  • 3
    Unfair downvoting
  • 3
    Unfriendly moderators
  • 3
    No opinion based questions
  • 3
    Mean users
  • 2
    Limited to types of questions it can accept

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is Auth0?

A set of unified APIs and tools that instantly enables Single Sign On and user management to all your applications.

What is Stack Overflow?

Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. It's built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites. With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about programming.

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What companies use Auth0?
What companies use Stack Overflow?
See which teams inside your own company are using Auth0 or Stack Overflow.
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What tools integrate with Auth0?
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Blog Posts

Sep 29 2020 at 7:36PM

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What are some alternatives to Auth0 and Stack Overflow?
Stormpath
Stormpath is an authentication and user management service that helps development teams quickly and securely build web and mobile applications and services.
Amazon Cognito
You can create unique identities for your users through a number of public login providers (Amazon, Facebook, and Google) and also support unauthenticated guests. You can save app data locally on users’ devices allowing your applications to work even when the devices are offline.
Okta
Connect all your apps in days, not months, with instant access to thousands of pre-built integrations - even add apps to the network yourself. Integrations are easy to set up, constantly monitored, proactively repaired and handle authentication and provisioning.
Firebase
Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.
Keycloak
It is an Open Source Identity and Access Management For Modern Applications and Services. It adds authentication to applications and secure services with minimum fuss. No need to deal with storing users or authenticating users. It's all available out of the box.
See all alternatives