Drop-in auth and identity for developers building apps.
12 vendors · Last updated 5/30/2026
Quick answer
Short answer
Developer-first auth platforms ship SDKs, hosted login, and identity APIs so engineering teams can add login, signup, and session management without building from scratch.
Auth0 is a developer-centric customer identity and access management (CIAM) platform offering authentication, authorization, and user management for web and mobile applications, now operating as Okta Customer Identity Cloud.
Clerk provides drop-in authentication UI components and a complete user management platform for React, Next.js, and modern web applications, including B2B organization management and enterprise SSO.
Ping Identity provides enterprise IAM with advanced federation, financial-grade API security, and hybrid cloud/on-premises deployment options, commonly deployed in financial services, healthcare, and government.
Teleport provides secure, audited access to SSH, Kubernetes, databases, and internal applications using short-lived certificates and RBAC — designed for engineering teams who need infrastructure access without static credentials.
WorkOS provides a developer API for adding enterprise identity features — SSO, SCIM directory sync, audit logs, and admin portals — to B2B SaaS applications, enabling faster enterprise sales readiness.
Cerbos is an open source, self-hostable authorization policy engine that enables developers to define and evaluate fine-grained access control policies separately from application code.
Descope provides a no-code/low-code authentication platform with a visual flow builder, enabling teams to design and deploy authentication journeys (passwordless, MFA, SSO) without writing authentication logic from scratch.
Frontegg provides a full user management and authentication platform for B2B SaaS companies, including enterprise SSO, multi-tenancy, RBAC, audit logs, and self-service admin portals for end customers.
FusionAuth is a comprehensive authentication and user management platform offering flexible deployment (self-hosted, private cloud, or FusionAuth Cloud), developer-friendly APIs, and broad feature coverage including SSO, MFA, SAML, OIDC, and multi-tenancy.
Keycloak is the most widely deployed open source IAM platform, providing enterprise-grade SSO, MFA, SAML, OIDC, LDAP, and Kerberos support in a self-hosted, Apache 2.0 licensed package maintained by Red Hat.
Permit.io provides authorization-as-a-service with a low-code policy management interface, RBAC/ABAC/ReBAC policy support, and a managed policy decision layer — enabling teams to ship fine-grained access control without building it from scratch.
Stytch is an API-first authentication platform offering passwordless authentication (magic links, OTPs, passkeys), session management, and B2B organization management with a clean, headless developer experience.
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