Passwordless Authentication Software Resources

Teams often adopt Ory Kratos for its open-source flexibility, but many later look for alternatives as operational complexity increases. Common challenges include risky upgrades due to breaking changes, high ongoing maintenance to support SSO and custom schemas, limited native support for multi-tenancy and enterprise requirements, and the growing engineering cost of running and scaling identity infrastructure in production.

Teams often start with Firebase Authentication for speed, but later look for alternatives as applications scale. Common drivers include tight Google Cloud lock-in, unpredictable usage-based costs at high volume, limited control over where user data is stored, and difficulty supporting multi-tenant, partner, or regulated use cases. Firebase’s basic security defaults and SMS-only MFA also leave gaps for teams that need stronger security orchestration and compliance flexibility.

Many teams begin with Amazon Cognito because it is readily available in AWS, but later seek alternatives as requirements expand. Common reasons include unexpected price increases tied to advanced security or multi-region usage, the need to write complex Lambda functions to customize login flows, tight AWS lock-in that complicates hybrid or multi-cloud architectures, and frustration with unclear documentation or slow support.