Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B • Hacker News Board

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#141

Post by neom » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

NomDePlum wrote: post #138

neom wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Dan, curious: why it's so difficult to figure out who is behind the company from the website?

I'm curious why that matters? Part of that curiosity is because the answers so far talk about 'About'pages and similar. What's the added benefit/trust you are looking for here? Apologies if my question is naïve.

I thought about that quite a bit before I posted this. "why do you care??"

The answer was still just the same: I'm curious who is working on this.

So I guess pretty much just curiosity for me.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#142

Post by andy_ppp » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:53 PM UTC

I might be mad but auth0 really for $6.5bn, seems like a pretty simple problem solved in a quite mediocre way. I mean the common use case of an app+api+website login seems excruciatingly difficult to setup, surely something that did this by default and didn’t need configuration unless breaking out of this model would be preferable to the weirdness I’ve had on the 3/4 occasions I’ve set it up now.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#143

Post by conro1108 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #92

fumar wrote: post #20

Okta stock dropped 12% in after hours. I see the acquisition as a positive business decision.

The stock dropping only 12% after a 21% dilution reflects that 'the street' sees this as a net positive as well.

Wouldn't that just mean that the delta between the dilution and the stock drop was 'the street's take on the "real" valuation of auth0?

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#144

Post by mc32 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

Azeralthefallen wrote: post #131

I hate this. We moved from Okta a few years ago after we were basically received almost no actual real support for a bunch of issues, even though we were paying a premium cost. Nobody cares about issues on their Github, the kicker was a when we received a support response as suddenly something was no longer working after an update, we got help in the form of "We have no plans to address this anytime soon." when askin…

I’ve heard good things about Onelogin. I think Duo also seems to be another option.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#145

Post by davewritescode » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

We use Okta for a bunch of stuff and I do really love their product. My company did two rounds of evaluation and really loved Auth0 but their product was unfortunately too opinionated about some things which made it difficult to adopt.

I don't know what this means regarding costs but for my place of business we saved money versus hiring people to operate/maintain the system.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#146

Post by mooreds » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 12:02 AM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #89

Does anyone else think its a horrible idea to outsource your companies authentication? Where I work we are migrating to Okta, and it blows my mind that anyone thinks it is a good idea.

There was a big discussion on this a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25848349

(Disclosure, the post that sparked the discussion is on my company's blog.)

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#147

Post by davewritescode » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 12:02 AM UTC

theptip wrote: post #136

Azeralthefallen wrote: post #131

I hate this. We moved from Okta a few years ago after we were basically received almost no actual real support for a bunch of issues, even though we were paying a premium cost. Nobody cares about issues on their Github, the kicker was a when we received a support response as suddenly something was no longer working after an update, we got help in the form of "We have no plans to address this anytime soon." when askin…

Can second this, Okta requires you to "contact support" to turn on basic features like email customization, and even though I'm a paying customer, I was given a multi-week estimate (after waiting a week or two) for how long it would take to enable this feature. It's a flag in the web UI in Auth0. This did not fill me with confidence.

I will 3rd this, this is my major issue with Okta in general. Other than that it's been pretty good for us.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#148

Post by davewritescode » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 12:04 AM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #11

dyeje wrote: post #10

Does this rise to the level of antitrust scrutiny? Aren't these like the two biggest SSO providers?

Except that AWS and Google have their own offerings (and the I think these aren't SSO companies as much as Auth as a Service providers)

If Cognito is the AWS offering you're talking about then it doesn't even begin to compete. It's really a terrible product and AWS has misled us about the roadmap multiple times specifically in relation to multi-region support.

When AWS Cognito had it's outage in November, I was quite happy we went with Okta.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#149

Post by beachy » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

andrew_ wrote: post #50

I hope this gives rise to another, smaller viable party outside of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Perhaps I'm jaded, perhaps hopelessly biased - but I can only see this as a net negative. Okta's open source packages receive a pitiful amount of attention (for example: https://github.com/okta/okta-oidc-js/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%... ) with forks almost becoming a requirement. Auth0 by contrast has been "on the ball" for…

The problem is that Google, FB, Microsoft and all the other "auth providers" are able to deliver a good and free auth service because it's subsidised by their other products.

Whereas Okta, Auth0, etc. cannot, since that is their product. So they have to charge.

Given network effects, a free auth system will always beat a paid one, except where the user is compelled to use it. (e.g. you want to use my SaaS product? You'll have to create an identity in my private auth system).

So I don't think these products (and I'll include KeyCloak which is fricking awesome) really compete as such with the FAANG offerings.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#150

Post by Tsarbomb » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 12:06 AM UTC

andrew_ wrote: post #50

I hope this gives rise to another, smaller viable party outside of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Perhaps I'm jaded, perhaps hopelessly biased - but I can only see this as a net negative. Okta's open source packages receive a pitiful amount of attention (for example: https://github.com/okta/okta-oidc-js/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%... ) with forks almost becoming a requirement. Auth0 by contrast has been "on the ball" for…

I also interviewed at Okta and one of the first interviewers started the session by insulting me. Like full stop, insulted me. I threw the rest of the interview and enjoyed the free lunch.