Authentication-as-a-Service: Auth0 vs. Backand

Authentication-as-a-Service (or AaaS) is focused on encapsulating the business functionality around user authentication. Using an AaaS provider, such as Backand or Auth0, lets you easily integrate with an authentication system, and focusing your efforts on the unique aspects of your app that deliver the most value to your users.

Auth0 is one of the most popular Authentication-as-a-Service (sometimes also referred to as Identification-as-a-Service or IDaaS) providers, allowing developers to easily integrate with authentication providers, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others. Auth0 ships with integrations to multiple social media providers, as well as a custom user management scheme. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the features Auth0 has to offer, and how they compare with Backand’s authentication functionality.

Choosing an AaaS Provider

It is important to note from the start that Auth0 and Backand have different targets. Auth0 is a pure-play Authentication-as-a-Service, and designed to work as one component within a larger application. Backand has a broader scope, providing Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS or MBAaaS) functionality. As such, the feature set Backand has to offer will be more robust. You can build parts – maybe even significant components – of an application with Auth0, but you’ll ultimately either need to provide a server or some other kind of back-end functionality. With Backand, you don’t need anything else – all of your tools are available at your fingertips, and you don’t need to work with any external providers.

While Auth0 has a number of robust features related to security, and more focus on provider authentication integrations, ultimately you’re still faced with the fact that when you’ve implemented all of the features Auth0 has to offer, you’ll still need a back-end application to implement them in. Backand offers you most of the same features as Auth0, but also gives you all of the tools you need to build your app in a completely serverless fashion. With Backand, all of your functionality, security, and business rules can be implemented in the same place, providing a singular access point that makes maintenance, troubleshooting, and integration of the final results easier than a multi-tenant system leveraging multiple solutions.

Comparing Auth0 and Backand

Below is a quick feature-by-feature comparison of Auth0 and Backand:

Conclusion

Auth0 is a robust and full-featured Authentication-as-a-Service provider. They offer user registration, authentication, and user security. However, Auth0 is not powerful enough to fully replace your application’s back end. Backand, by comparison, offers most of the same features: Single Sign On, user registration and authentication, social media provider plugins, security-related callback functionality, and more – along with the additional features you need to fully develop, maintain, and even host your application. Depending on your use case, Auth0 may be right for your application, but if you’re looking to build a serverless application, you’ll be better off working with Backand.