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Show HN: Clerk – all of user management as-a-service, not just authentication

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Re: Show HN: Clerk – all of user management as-a-service, not just authentication

#171

Post by ridaj »

colinclerk wrote: post #2

Hi HN - We couldn't be more excited to launch Clerk and help developers solve all of user management. It's been quite a journey to reach this point, with over a year of iteration on the developer experience before we found something developers love. Using Clerk will enable you to spend more time on your application, and less time worrying about the ever-growing list of user management concerns. Our team is listening…

I'd suggest making it very clear in your docs whose data you're managing, and (assuming it's all the customer's and you don't lay claims to it) how would portability work. I wouldn't want to use this without a very clear understanding of what I'm locking my customer base into.

Are you offering any security benefits?

What security is there against malicious insider threat? (Eg can you / people at Clerk impersonate any of my customers on demand? Is there auditing/accountability for such activity?

Is this something that sites with crappy roll-your-own user management would be advised to migrate towards, and if so why?

Re: Show HN: Clerk – all of user management as-a-service, not just authentication

#172

Post by yannoninator »

chickenpotpie wrote: post #161
yannoninator wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said: > Sure, because “do passwordless emails” is just a snap of the finger away, right? And I showed it literally is. The choice is yours to reimplement this authentication system, but in terms of "a snap of the finger away", You can do that, That is all. I've done these type of systems before at scale and it took minutes to do (works just like a password reset mechanism) and it is very trivial. In your original…

Top comment: why would you trust a 3rd party with accounts? Next Comment: Because they are better at security Your comment: Or you can do passwordless yourself and have no security problems Next comment: You can't just do passwordless with a snap of the finger Your comment: Yeah just use a 3rd party You're incorrect about the thread

This is a very reductionist assessment of the thread and glosses over one important detail I said here:

> The choice is yours to reimplement this authentication system, but in terms of "a snap of the finger away", You can do that, That is all.

It doesn't matter if it's a 3rd party, it is still an option that exists "a snap of the finger away", which was my response to that comment, this type of system can be done in an hour, 3rd party or library.

But if you want to speed things up, then there's your solution.

That was the point, but go ahead and try and reduce and spin this to your own interpretation.

Re: Show HN: Clerk – all of user management as-a-service, not just authentication

#173

Post by ohyeshedid »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #115
1MoreThing wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, MFA is so important that a company should be willing to pay for it.

I and GP comment seem to take the opposite stance: MFA is so important that products like this shouldn't offer a plan that doesn't include it. Either include it in your free plan or don't offer a free plan; don't make security an upsell.

> ...don't make security an upsell.

Especially in a security focused product.

Re: Show HN: Clerk – all of user management as-a-service, not just authentication

#174

Post by slig »

OliverGilan wrote: post #130
ukulele wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until you find Userfront, which does the same thing for free until 10k users

Just looked it up. I don't know how I've never come across this. Reading the docs quickly it seems like this is cheaper and easier/more intuitive to set up than any other auth service. Will definitely be trying it with my next project, thank you.

I tried very recently to research all the "auth0 alternatives" and that project never came up.

Re: Show HN: Clerk – all of user management as-a-service, not just authentication

#176

Post by thingsgoup »

SahAssar wrote: post #155
qwantim1 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a great idea, but your company is going to be a serious target. You not only will have the ability to control authN, but you’ll own authR also if you’re managing users and groups. You’ll also own all the conference rooms, printers, servers, etc., since you’ll be hosting Active Directory for the Windows folk... at least that’s how I’d understand user management for auth.

Is authR another way to say authZ? I've never heard of authR and a quick google seems to mostly show a cloudflare project and stuff related to the term "author".

I took it to mean authz. Never seen authR before either.

Re: Show HN: Clerk – all of user management as-a-service, not just authentication

#177

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

digaozao wrote: post #169
SahAssar wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't tried it but https://www.keycloak.org/ (by redhat) seems close to what you describe.

I have been using it for a year. No problems so far, and found it to be really flexible

Keycloak FTW. Been using it for 18 months now in production.

Re: Show HN: Clerk – all of user management as-a-service, not just authentication

#178

Post by afrodc_ »

SahAssar wrote: post #140
jerrac wrote: post #138

So, first, congrats on launching your product. :) Personally, I don't have a need for it, and if I did, I'd be very reluctant to use a proprietary service, but I'm sure there are companies out there who will be happy to use you. Good luck! ------------ That said, maybe the HN community can answer something I've wondered about... Why isn't there an Open Source, standardized, self-hosted, version of this kind of servic…

I haven't tried it but https://www.keycloak.org/ (by redhat) seems close to what you describe.

Keycloak is great and pretty extensible on a per basis need.

Re: Show HN: Clerk – all of user management as-a-service, not just authentication

#179

Post by brightball »

colinclerk wrote: post #2

Hi HN - We couldn't be more excited to launch Clerk and help developers solve all of user management. It's been quite a journey to reach this point, with over a year of iteration on the developer experience before we found something developers love. Using Clerk will enable you to spend more time on your application, and less time worrying about the ever-growing list of user management concerns. Our team is listening…

If I try Clerk for an application but decide I’m not happy with it, what is the process for moving my user management away from Clerk and into my own system?
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