Should I use Auth0, a WordPress plugin, or…?

[nabhacosley]

Hi! I’m new here.

I’m just starting to explore the SSO space but an Auth0 rep suggested I post here and get some advice. I know so little that at this point I don’t even know what I don’t know.

The main question is how to approach SSO: should we use a WordPress-based plugin, or Auth0?

Then also I’m wondering things like, Which is easier from a development perspective? Which is more flexible for years to come? How do we store user metadata and access it? I realize those are general questions that depend on our own directions; but at this point I’m just trying to get a general sense of things.

We have a fairly complex situation! But let me break it down:

• Our users are mostly free sign-ups through our website, some are paying members — either paying for individual online courses or for subscriptions. Right now active monthly users are in the hundreds, but they may get up to some-odd thousand (above 7,000?) in the not too distant future. It’s hard to know, actually, since we’re creating a new tier of free membership and will be putting a lot of resources to marketing it.

• The center of our user experience is WordPress (www.ananda.org), and that data will be sync’ed to Salesforce and Ontraport. That part we already have a solution for.

• We have two apps currently which we want to add login and account creation to. These could use Firebase for user data, or they could grab data from WordPress or from Auth0 — but in any case they need to use the same usernames and passwords as people have on the website.

• We have a number of other WordPress sites which we want to be able to have people login to, using the same username / password.

• Probably there will be other services in the future that we’d like to integrate with SSO — a video service like Muvi (which can use SAML and other protocols) or Vimeo OTT, for example; Discord (hi Discord!); etc.

Thanks for any help or guidance.

[dan.woda]

Hi @nabhacosley,

Welcome to the Auth0 Community Forum!

Thanks for reaching out and detailing your plans so far. Some of your questions have multiple answers, and will depend on preference or implementation.

First I would like to point you towards this article:

WordPress SSO with Auth0

It describes some of the questions regarding wordpress and SSO.

The user data that should be stored with auth0 should be associated with authentication or authorization. You can use the user_metadata object or the app_metadata object to store user data, and these can be manipulated via the management API, dashboard, or within a Rule.

Store User Data

Metadata

Rules

Some of the questions about plugin vs not plugin are difficult to answer definitively. The plugin exist for a reason, and is certainly developed to make integration with wordpress easier.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Dan