[Sponsor] WorkOS: How SSO Works and the Fastest Way to Add It
SSO is table stakes for enterprise deals, but building it into your app yourself means writing SAML controllers, parsing XML assertions, and handling IdP-specific quirks for each provider. Learn how SAML flows work, the tradeoffs between building or buying, and best practices for security, routing, and UX. Or skip the hassle and add SSO with WorkOS . Read the guide → ★
WorkOS offers a guide to explain how Single Sign-On (SSO) functions and the fastest method to incorporate it into your application. SSO is crucial for attracting larger enterprise deals and reducing the sign-up friction that often leads visitors to abandon your site. Essentially, SSO involves treating your app's authentication as a service. Instead of developing your own authentication system, you can outsource it to a service like Okta or OneLogin, which handles creating usernames, passwords, and credentials.
SSO enables users to authenticate through a third-party service, rather than managing their own credentials. IdPs (Identity Providers) like Okta, Google, OneLogin, and others handle authentication, providing a more secure and feature-rich solution than what a startup can typically build. It's widely adopted by startups and traditional enterprises alike, with popular apps such as Slack, Asana, Notion, Loom, and Webflow incorporating SSO.
There are multiple protocols for implementing SSO, including SAML, OAuth (1.0 and 2.0), WS-Fed, and OpenID Connect (OIDC). However, SAML is the most commonly used. The SSO process involves a series of steps, starting with a user attempting to sign in through your app. This initiates a communication protocol called SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language), which governs the exchange of authentication information between your app (the service provider) and the IdP (the provider that handles authentication).
There are two ways SSO can be implemented: SP-initiated and IDP-initiated. In SP-initiated, the user signs in through your app, while IDP-initiated involves users starting at their IdP, selecting the desired app, and completing the authentication. To add SSO, you can either build it yourself or use third-party services like WorkOS, Auth0, AWS Cognito, and GCP Identity Platform.
These services offer SDKs and packages that simplify the integration process. When building SSO from scratch, you'll need to handle the chosen protocol (typically SAML), manage the communication between your app and the IdP, and handle various edge cases. However, middleware like passport.js can help streamline the process, especially for developers working with Python backends and services like OneLogin.
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