User Management Tool Showdown: Okta vs Auth0 vs Frontegg

SaaS user management is basically the process of managing users, permissions, and roles on an ongoing basis. This involves identifying, authenticating, and authorizing all users for only the amount of access they need or have paid for. Are you in the market for a comprehensive user management solution? We are here to help. This detailed tool comparison will zero in on the top options available today and hopefully help you pick wisely. Let’s dive into it.

Gone are the days when you could afford to neglect SaaS user account management and just get by with a super-admin role for all. Read more about roles and permissions handling in SaaS applications before you get started. 

Let the Battle Begin: Okta vs Auth0 vs Frontegg

As mentioned earlier in the article, these are not the only options in the market today, but you will probably not find more comprehensive ones. We’ll cover the fourth option, FusionAuth, later in the article as an honorary mention.

Okta 

Okta is a cloud-based identity management service that helps businesses of all sizes secure/manage identities and access to their application. Its most popular offering has been enabling single sign-on (SSO) for all apps used within organizations. This means that you can sign in to your company’s Office 365 apps, Gitlab, Trello, Jira, and other applications with just one password. 

With the Okta CIAM solution, devs can also create frictionless user registrations and logins for their apps. There is also adaptive multi-factor authentication (MFA). Besides passwords, you can even go as far as implementing passwordless authentication. APIs and SDKs are easy to implement and maintain. There is support for over 10 languages and frameworks to allow the easy stack upgrades. 

Other main features of Okta include:

• Flexible User Migrations: With Okta, you can seamlessly migrate your user stores into Okta with multiple import methods that fit your business needs. You can import users from a CSV, API, database or directory.
  
• Support for effective management of third-party accounts from partner organizations: If you have a support admin from another company joining your team, you can provide temporary access to the support admin.
  
• Centralized user management: With Okta, you basically get a single consolidated view of every user from different identities under one universal directory. This makes it easy to manage SaaS apps that are scaling up fast.

Pros: Easy to use, Integration with 7000+ apps, Good documentation, Community
Cons: No straightforward multi-tenancy, Expensive for important B2B capabilities, Onboarding and training required (complexity)
Pricing: Dev APIs and SDKs – Free for 1000 Users, $50 for every 2,500 Additional Users. Enterprise-Grade Features Pricing Differs – Check Pricing Catalogue

Auth0

This authentication and authorization platform is popular amongst devs, since they were the company’s initial target audience. It helped them integrate secure access and identity management into their SaaS apps. Subsequently, Auth0 adapted its product to enterprise use cases. Auth0 helps find the right balance between user convenience, privacy, and security, while chasing identity management.

Besides the straightforward username/password authentication method, social and enterprise SSO is also supported with this solution, something that helps improve productivity with employees and users alike. The SSO interface allows direct access to the entire active application suite. The dashboard is straightforward and intuitive, something that translates into shorter onboarding times. 

Auth0 also makes it easy to build identity flows with it’s drag and drop functionality

Related: What is Passwordless Authentication?

Also with Auth0, you will be getting:

• Comprehensive documentation and a hyperactive community: The platform provides a big team of developers available to help with any difficulty. You’ll be surprised with the amount of attention people get in the Auth0 forums.
  
• Security: You can build an extra security layer into your application with attack protection from bots, adaptive multiple factor authentication (MFA), step-up authentication solutions and breached password detection solutions.
  
• Passwordless authentication support: You already know that the modern SaaS user is gravitating away from passwords. The Auth0 solution authenticates securely and efficiently via emails, SMSs, and magic links.

Pros: High on security, Serverless Option, Very Strong Community
Cons: Missing deep multi-tenancy granularity, Limited 3rd party compatibility, Complex B2B solution integration, No full login box customization, No REST API for Logins
Pricing: B2B Essentials package starts at $130 per month (includes MFA). B2B Pro package starts at $800 per month (covers external databases). Check pricing.

Frontegg

Frontegg is a next-gen platform that helps developers and SaaS companies build products faster. It provides out-of-the-box functional pluggable components for common necessary features so that they can focus on building only what makes their product unique. User management is one of them, along with user authentication and other add-ons that will be available soon. Stay tuned!

Frontegg provides a plug-and-play admin portal for user management that is customer-facing and can centralize all user management capabilities in one place – team management, audit logs, webhooks, API tokens, and subscriptions – a truly end-to-end solution for SaaS user management. Frontegg is integrated seamlessly (and fast) and does not affect the core backend or frontend of your product. 

The main features of the Frontegg solution include:

• Multi-tenant by design: Enterprise-size businesses and small apps that are scaling up fast – both can use Frontegg. The multi-tenant design means all of the data is segregated as per the specific tenant in-use.
  
• Self-service management: The SaaS space is gravitating fast towards the self-service methodology. Frontegg has a self-service Admin portal embedded in the app, with all authentication and login features you need.
  
• Versatile user management solution – Frontegg addresses frontend (customer facing UI) and backend things are covered as well (pun intended). You get documentation and an API-first approach. It’s all very easy to integrate.

Pros: PLG-friendly, Self-service, Plug-and-play, Customizable UI, Great for B2B Apps
Cons: Relatively new company, Limited social logins
Pricing: 30-day free trial with all features unlocked. Growth plan packages start at $499 per month. See pricing page for more details.

Okta vs Auth0 vs Frontegg

Related: Password Hacking: How Passwords are Breached

Honorary Mention: FusionAuth

We can’t wrap it up without mentioning FusionAuth. Although not an enterprise-level solution, it is a capable identity and access management tool. Built with developers and tech teams in mind, it can easily be integrated with any language or framework and when done correctly – can be deployed in minutes. With FusionAuth, you can have complete flexibility to handle multiple use cases.

SaaS user management with FusionAuth is easy as it allows maximum visibility with its centralized dashboard, via which you can configure groups and access detailed reporting. There is also extensive documentation and an active community, although customer service can be slow at times. It also offers COPPA and family support – a comprehensive family management system with built-in emailing capabilities.

Pros: Lots of customizability, Many useful features, Attractive pricing
Cons: Not suitable for enterprise setups, Iffy Customer Service
Pricing: No free trial is offered here. The basic cloud-based plan starts at $75 per month. See pricing page for more details.

Look for Flexibility, Scalability, and Versatility 

It’s important to mention again that there are other user management tools available out there, so feel free to do your research and check out options that are not mentioned in this comparison resource. Regardless of the user management tool you decide to go with, make sure it is secure, compliant, and versatile, while supporting self-service and offering multi-tenant capabilities.

Identity provisioning and user management are key features for most SaaS apps. But, should you spend months building it when you can easily use any of the tools described above to achieve better results within a day or two? The time you save can be used to focus on building the features that actually make your product unique. This is where Frontegg starts gaining an edge over its competitors.