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Firebase Authentication vs Keycloak: What are the differences?
Key Differences: Firebase Authentication vs Keycloak
Firebase Authentication and Keycloak are both popular identity management systems used for authentication and authorization. While they share some similarities, there are several key differences between the two platforms.
Integration with Platform Ecosystem: Firebase Authentication is a service provided by Google that seamlessly integrates with other Firebase products, such as Firebase Realtime Database and Firestore. On the other hand, Keycloak is an open-source identity and access management solution that can be integrated with various platforms and technologies, making it more flexible and compatible with different ecosystems.
Deployment Options: Firebase Authentication is a fully managed service provided by Google, which means that it requires minimal setup and maintenance efforts. Keycloak, on the other hand, can be self-hosted, allowing organizations to have full control over their authentication infrastructure and tailor it to their specific needs. This can be advantageous for organizations that require more customization and control over their authentication processes.
Scalability and Performance: Firebase Authentication benefits from Google's robust infrastructure, meaning that it can handle high traffic volumes and offers excellent scalability and performance. Keycloak's performance, on the other hand, may depend on the hardware and setup of the hosting environment, making it potentially less scalable for organizations with significant scalability requirements.
Development Resources and Community Support: Firebase Authentication is backed by Google, one of the largest technology companies, which ensures a vast pool of resources, extensive documentation, and strong community support. Keycloak, being an open-source project, also has a strong community of developers contributing to its development and providing support. However, the level of available resources and community support may vary compared to Firebase Authentication.
Pricing Model: Firebase Authentication is part of the Firebase suite of products and follows a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which is based on the number of active users. Keycloak, being an open-source solution, is free to use, but organizations need to consider the cost associated with self-hosting, maintenance, and support.
Customization and Extensibility: Firebase Authentication provides a streamlined and easy-to-use interface, which allows for quick integration into applications. It offers pre-built UI components and customizable branding options. Keycloak, being an open-source and self-hosted solution, offers greater customization and extensibility options, allowing organizations to tailor the authentication process according to their specific requirements.
In summary, Firebase Authentication is a Google-backed, managed service that seamlessly integrates with the Firebase platform, offers high scalability and performance, and provides extensive resources and support. Keycloak, on the other hand, is an open-source, customizable solution that offers greater flexibility in terms of deployment options and integration with different ecosystems, but requires more effort and expertise for setup and maintenance.
I am working on building a platform in my company that will provide a single sign on to all of the internal products to the customer. To do that we need to build an Authorisation server to comply with the OIDC protocol. Earlier we had built the Auth server using the Spring Security OAuth project but since in Spring Security 5.x it is no longer supported we are planning to get over with it as well. Below are the 2 options that I was considering to replace the Spring Auth Server. 1. Keycloak 2. Okta 3. Auth0 Please advise which one to use.
It isn't clear if beside the AuthZ requirement you had others, but given the scenario you described my suggestion would for you to go with Keycloak. First of all because you have already an onpremise IdP and with Keycloak you could maintain that setup (if privacy is a concern). Another important point is configuration and customization: I would assume with Spring OAuth you might have had some custom logic around authentication, this can be easily reconfigured in Keycloak by leveraging SPI (https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/index.html#_auth_spi). Finally AuthZ as a functionality is well developed, based on standard protocols and extensible on Keycloak (https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/authorization_services/)
We have good experience using Keycloak for SSO with OIDC with our Spring Boot based applications. It's free, easy to install and configure, extensible - so I recommend it.
You can also use Keycloak as an Identity Broker, which enables you to handle authentication on many different identity providers of your customers. With this setup, you are able to perform authorization tasks centralized.
Pros of Firebase Authentication
- Completely Free12
- Native App + Web integrations8
- Email/Password8
- Passwordless7
- Works seemlessly with other Firebase Services6
- Integration with OAuth Providers5
- Anonymous Users4
- Easy to Integrate and Manage4
- MFA1
Pros of Keycloak
- It's a open source solution33
- Supports multiple identity provider24
- OpenID and SAML support17
- Easy customisation12
- JSON web token10
- Maintained by devs at Redhat6
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Cons of Firebase Authentication
- Heavy webpack6
Cons of Keycloak
- Okta7
- Poor client side documentation6
- Lack of Code examples for client side5