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Keycloak vs OAuth2: What are the differences?
Keycloak and OAuth2 are authentication and authorization frameworks used in web applications. While both provide similar functionalities, there are key differences between the two.
Standard vs. Implementation: OAuth2 is an open standard protocol for authorization, while Keycloak is an open source implementation of the OAuth2 protocol. This means that OAuth2 defines the overall framework and Keycloak provides a specific implementation of it.
Single Sign-On (SSO): Keycloak is designed to support Single Sign-On (SSO) out of the box. It allows users to authenticate once and then access multiple applications without needing to re-authenticate. OAuth2, on the other hand, does not inherently support SSO and requires additional implementation to achieve it.
User Management: Keycloak provides built-in user management features, allowing administrators to create and manage users, roles, and permissions. OAuth2, being a protocol, does not provide user management functionalities by default and requires integration with an external identity provider or user management system.
Token Validation: Keycloak has built-in token validation capabilities, which means it can validate access tokens issued by itself or any other OAuth2 authorization server. While OAuth2 does provide a standard mechanism for token validation, the implementation is left to individual authorization servers.
Security Ecosystem: Keycloak provides additional security features like two-factor authentication, social login integration, and support for various federation protocols (such as SAML and OpenID Connect). OAuth2, being a standard, does not provide these security features by default and relies on external components for their implementation.
Ease of Use: Keycloak aims to provide a fully-featured authentication and authorization solution with a user-friendly interface for configuration and administration. OAuth2, being a protocol, requires additional effort and expertise to set up and configure, as it only defines the overall flow and mechanisms.
In summary, Keycloak is an open-source implementation of the OAuth2 protocol that provides additional features such as SSO, user management, and enhanced security. OAuth2, as a standard, defines the framework for authorization but requires additional components and configuration to achieve the same level of functionality.
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 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
Pros of OAuth2
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Cons of Keycloak
- Okta7
- Poor client side documentation6
- Lack of Code examples for client side5
Cons of OAuth2
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