Single sign-on (SSO) solutions enable users to authenticate identity securely and seamlessly with multiple applications, using just one set of credentials. There are many benefits to implementing single sign-on: it is more secure than using multiple passwords to authenticate access, admins can more effectively control which accounts users have access to, and it makes managing credentials much easier for end-users.
Single sign-on solutions are delivered by identity providers, and work by building trusted relationships with third-party service providers to authenticate users across multiple accounts. When a user attempts to log into a service, the identity provider can be contacted to check if the user has been authenticated. If the users ID can be authenticated, the user is granted access with no further questions asked. If the user cannot be authenticated via the provider, they will need to authenticate access and login ––usually enforced with a secure method of authentication such as multi-factor authentication (MFA).
As an end-user, single sign-on means you only need to login once to access all of your applications and services. After logging in, you can access apps as normal within a browser session with data tokens used to carry your authenticated status across applications and services. Users no longer need to remember multiple accounts and passwords, and admins can manage user privileges more effectively to reduce scope for data breach and account compromise.
The single sign-on market has become competitive, with a number of identity providers offering SSO solutions. They are typically tightly integrated with comprehensive identity and access management platforms which also enforce multi-factor authentication, privileged access management, remote access controls, password management and other zero trust principles.
This guide will explore the top enterprise SSO providers and their wider identity platforms. We’ll consider their features, such as third-party integrations, identity management policies, authentication, and auditing, based on our own technical testing and customer feedback.
JumpCloud is a comprehensive Open Directory Platform™ that provides secure, cloud-based SSO capabilities. With JumpCloud SSO, users can access not just work-related applications, but also includes apps that authenticate with LDAP, from IT services (e.g., Jenkins, OpenVPN, or Airwatch) to ticketing and control systems (e.g., Atlassian Jira) to on-premises attached storage systems (e.g., Synology or QNAP), and other IT resources via a single set of credentials. This “one identity per user” feature allows for easier user management and gives admins full vision into the who, what, where, and when of each access attempt, as well as streamlining the login process for end users.
JumpCloud SSO delivers simple and scalable user management that allows administrators to create groups based on employee department or job role, then associate those groups to applications to restrict access and provide appropriate authorizations and permissions. Administrators can save time onboarding by adding a new user to a group and automatically granting them access to associated apps.
Administrators can manage all of their users, access, account provisioning, user deactivation and from a single console and a growing list of SAML and SCIM connectors that enable out of the box integrations with an extensive library of applications.
JumpCloud is used by over 180,000 organizations worldwide and is consistently ranked as a top solution by customers. JumpCloud SSO is available as a standalone solution, or as a bundle with other JumpCloud identity, access, and device management solutions. We would recommend JumpCloud’s SSO solution for SMBs and mid-market companies looking to streamline and tighten account security.
Thales is a well-established technology company, currently providing solutions across critical sectors for more than 30,000 organizations in 68 countries globally. Having acquired identity security company Gemalto in 2019—who, themselves, acquired SafeNet in 2015—this has enabled Thales to leverage Gemalto’s Trusted Digital ID Services Platform as well as the SafeNet Trusted Access solution for their customers. Identity and Security being a key market for Thales, they offer SafeNet Trusted Access as a cloud-based, SaaS, all-in-one identity and access management solution. This solution combines features such as SSO, MFA, and modern access security, while providing a single pane view of your entire organization for admins.
Part of Thales’ SafeNet Trusted Access solution, Smart SSO enables users to log into all their accounts and applications using a single identity, via one centralized portal. Admins can configure granular and flexible scenario-based access policies for each application, that determine the level of authentication required for each login attempt. This works in the background, gathering contextual information on factors such as known devices, location, and previous sessions, without disrupting users. Alongside SSO, users can leverage MFA and passwordless features, to reduce password fatigue while strengthening security. For admins, granular reports can be created and customized seamlessly, and lifecycle administration tasks can be fully automated.
Overall, Thales’ SafeNet Trusted Access is a comprehensive and trusted SSO and authentication solution. Users rate the platform as easy to deploy and manage, user friendly, reliable, providing excellent authentication and visibility across their user base. This makes it suitable across a wide range of use cases. Offering a multi-tier, multi-tenant environment, as well as hundreds of out-of-the-box integrations, this solution is ideal for mid to large Enterprises across all industries—with financial institutions, healthcare and governments being current customers—and organizations looking for an access management solution that offers strong authentication capabilities for numerous user contexts.
ManageEngine, the IT management division of Zoho Corporation, offers ADSelfService Plus – a robust single sign-on (SSO) and password management solution with powerful multi-factor authentication (MFA) capabilities. ADSelfService Plus provides secure access to Windows, macOS, and LinuxOS machines, VPNs, applications, endpoints, and Outlook Web Access (OWA) via secure single sign-on, enforced with multi-factor authentication.
With ADSelfService Plus, organizations can simplify the end-user login experience and secure access to multiple points with secure SSO. By using Active Directory domain credentials, users can easily and securely authenticate their identities across corporate accounts, confirmed with a second factor using one of 18 methods. These include security questions, authenticator apps, hardware security tokens, and facial recognition.
Admins can also configure authentication policies from the admin console to enforce specific methods for specific groups and situations, and ensure users have access to only the right applications and services: a key tenant of Zero Trust. Admins can also create secure custom password policies to add an extra layer of security to their networks by preventing poor password behaviors.
ADSelfService Plus is easy to install and use, with options for server or machine installation and the choice of 64-bit or 32-bit versions. Highly rated by current users for its simplicity, ADSelfService Plus is a trusted solution for larger organizations – especially in finance, IT, healthcare, and government – seeking strong MFA and SSO alongside password management.
Cisco Duo Single Sign-On is a cloud-hosted SAML 2.0 identity solution that enables two-factor authentication and access policy enforcement for third-party applications, including Microsoft 365, and Salesforce. Users can securely access all of their native and cloud-based work applications via a single login, secured with additional adaptive authentication factors to prevent account compromise. The platform supports multiple authentication methods, including FIDO passkeys, security keys, and Duo Push.
From the management console, admins can customize granular access policies at an application level. This includes configuring adaptive and risk-based MFA policies based on contextual login data such as user location, role, and device. Cisco Duo produces a risk score for each login based on these factors. For high-risk logins, Duo requires users to verify their identity via integrated MFA. This ensures that only genuine users are accessing corporate accounts, whilst streamlining the authentication process for the end user. Users can self-enrol and self-manage their devices.
Cisco Duo is fully cloud-based, making it easy to deploy and giving it the flexibility to scale with your organization. Organizations can use Active Directory or another identity provider of their choice as a first-factor authentication source to govern user accounts. Duo is praised by both end users and IT admins for its ease of use, and is also popular amongst the MSP community, thanks to its multi-tenant dashboard that enables MSPs to manage Duo seamlessly across all of their clients’ devices. We recommend Cisco Duo as a powerful SSO tool for organizations of any size, and particularly those looking for an intuitive, comprehensive authentication and access management platform.
Read our interview with Wolfgang Goerlich, Advisory CISO and Strategist, Cisco Duo.
Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is the most popular cloud-based user directory service globally, delivered as part of Microsoft’s Entra identity management platform and Microsoft 365. Azure AD allows admins to enforce multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, conditional access policies and identity governance policies.
Microsoft Azure Active Directory supports several protocols for single sign-on, including SAML 2.0, OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, and WS-Federation. Azure AD is widely used by third-party applications for federated single sign-on. With federated single sign-on, Azure AD authenticates the user using their existing Microsoft credentials. Third-party developers can use Azure AD to authenticate user access to their service.
With Azure AD SSO, users can login into all their applications seamlessly, needing just their Microsoft 365 credentials, from any device, with a centralized portal showcasing connected applications. Admins can easily integrate third-party applications via the admin dashboard and enforce risk-based conditional access policies. Admins can also enforce multi-factor authentication policies, with multiple authentication options supported, including biometric authentication.
Microsoft also offers a ‘seamless’ single-sign option which enables users on Windows devices to automatically authenticate to applications. When enabled, users don’t need to even type in passwords or usernames – instead authenticating using native, on-device biometric controls. Microsoft Azure AD is a strong single sign-on option for enterprises using the Microsoft 365 eco-system. It offers comprehensive and secure identity controls, with wide support for third-party applications.
Read our interview with Alex Weinert, Director of Identity Security at Microsoft.
Okta is a leading global identity provider, used by more than 10,000 organizations globally to secure access for enterprise workforces and customer facing applications. The Okta Workforce Identity Cloud is a comprehensive suite of cloud-based enterprise identity solutions designed to enforce secure access to company accounts. This includes always on single sign-on, adaptive MFA, lifecycle and workflow management, and identity governance. Okta Single Sign-On is a customizable, cloud-based solution that enables secure access across all corporate accounts.
Okta Single Sign-on is easy to deploy, with pre-built integrations across more than 7,000 enterprise cloud applications. It also extends to on-premises applications, supporting SAML and OPENID connect integrations, with RADIUS and LDAP support and password vaulting. End users can access all of their applications from their cloud-based dashboard on any device, with self-service password resets.
Admins can manage all user access and applications from the central admin console, including identity policies such as multi-factor authentication, lifecycle management, and policy workflows. Okta enforces adaptive security policies to prevent account takeover attempts and ensure single sign-on users are securely authenticated. Okta also provides comprehensive auditing.
Okta’s platform is easy to use and simple to deploy, with comprehensive admin policies, and cost-effective pricing. From an end-user perspective, Okta delivers a secure and convenient SSO experience. Workforce identity has a $1,500 annual minimum contract price. The SSO component is available at a list price of $2 per user per month. We recommend OKTA as a strong option to consider for organizations looking for a comprehensive identity and access management platform, with a secure, easy-to-manage SSO component.
OneLogin is a leading identity and access management provider, securing more than 5,500 organizations worldwide. OneLogin’s cloud-based Workforce Identity platform provides a user directory, secure single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and identity lifecycle management in one unified identity platform. In 2021, OneLogin was acquired by One Identity, known for their integrated identity governance and administration, and privileged access management solutions.
OneLogin’s single sign-on solution enables secure, one-click login, with pre-built integrations across more than 6,000 enterprise applications. Users can access all connected applications from the secure single-sign in portal, which provisions access to all company and personal accounts with just one set of login credentials. Admins can enforce password security, multi-factor authentication, and context-based adaptive authentication workflows to secure access and prevent account takeover attempts.
OneLogin’s single sign-on also provides secure endpoint management functionalities, tied to the user directory component of the platform. Admins can enforce device trust policies and enforce multi-factor authentication when users log into their Windows or Mac device. For the end user, this makes authentication across devices seamless. You can simply switch on your device, authenticate your identity to login, and you will have seamless access to all of the applications available in the OneLogin SSO portal.
OneLogin also supports shared login credentials within the single sign-on component, enabling apps that don’t support multiple users to be accessed by different team members where required. For example, your marketing team could each have access to the shared corporate Twitter account. OneLogin is a strong choice for teams looking for secure, fully featured single sign-on, with the needs of end-users firmly in mind. The platform is a strong choice for mid-market to enterprise sized organizations that require secure single sign-on and multi-factor authentication with user directory and device management capabilities.
Popular with users since its establishment in 2002, Ping Identity is a market leader in the identity and access management space. Currently managing more than two billion identities globally—including some of the world’s leading organizations—their easy-to-use platform offers a comprehensive stack of solutions, including MFA, SSO, Directory, an admin portal, and adaptive authentication policies. The solution is designed for easy cloud deployment with unlimited application integrations, and works across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments for all customers, partners, and employees.
Ping Identity’s SSO solution is built to scale and enables staff to access all workspace applications—whether mobile, cloud, enterprise, or SaaS—using one set of credentials, via their centralized employee dock. This federated SSO is designed to work anywhere and from any device. The platform includes native support for identity standards such as SAML and OpenID Connect tokens. As well as this, the platform leverages artificial intelligence to analyze anomalous login attempts and can request further verification of the user’s identity if suspicious behavior is detected—such as logging in from an unrecognized device. These policies can be configured by admins via a centralized console and provide a greater level of assurance that the right users are accessing their accounts.
We rate Ping Identity’s solution highly, particularly for its reliability and ease of use as well as ease of deployment and configuration. With its focus on scalability, performance, and security, this solution is suitable for large enterprises as well as SMBs, and is well-suited to organizations across all industries—including finance, healthcare, and the public sector. We’d recommend this solution for organizations looking for scalable, secure, and convenient access to their workspace applications from any device and location.
Read our interview with Aubrey Turner, Executive Advisor at Ping Identity.
RSA provides enterprise-grade cloud, hybrid, and on-premises identity and access management solutions. They are known for setting the industry standard for multi-factor authentication – offering a range of MFA tokens, risk-based authentication processes, and passwordless authentication workflows. RSA SecureID is an identity and access management platform that provides powerful identity controls to secure on-premises authentication processes, including authentication, access management, and identity governance.
RSA SecureID allows admins to enforce dynamic risk-driven access policies for all users. The platform supports a range of multi-factor authentication workflows, including hardware tokens, FIDO-based authentication, push notifications, and one-time passcodes. Once authenticated to the SecureID platform, users can then access multiple connected resources including on-premises apps and cloud-applications. We recommend enterprise organizations, public sector organizations, and healthcare organizations looking to deploy seamless single sign-on for on-prem deployments consider shortlisting RSA SecureID.
Read our interview with Jim Taylor, Chief Product Officer at RSA.
Arculix by SecureAuth is a leading access management and secure authentication solution, delivering passwordless authentication, secure single-sign on, and risk-based access policies for employees, partners, and customers. Arculix for Workforce Identities supports continuous, adaptive authentication, context-aware sign-in flows, comprehensive analytics, device trust, and single sign-on. This enables secure identity management across the enterprise network.
Arculix SSO empowers users to access connected applications quickly and efficiently, secured by adaptive authentication policies to continuously verify user identities. Users can view all connected applications via an easy-to-use SSO portal. Admins can see a global view of all applications and devices connected to the network in real-time, with comprehensive policy controls and analytics to secure network access. Arculix provides detailed risk profiling, leveraging machine learning powered technologies to assess each login risk, integrated across existing PAM, SIEM, and IGA solutions.
Arculix also delivers secure passwordless authentication, with strong multi-factor authentication processes to minimize the risk of account compromise. SecureAuth supports over 30 different multi-factor authentication options, including on-device biometrics such as TouchID, and, industry standard, FIDO2. SecureAuth’s authentication app allows users to leverage their smartphones for OTP and facial recognition, improving the end-user experience for single sign-on authentication workflows.
SecureAuth Arculix offers a secure, flexible authentication platform, supporting a wide range of MFA methods, with organizations able to choose between on-prem, cloud, and hybrid applications. We rate the solution highly for its risk profiling capabilities, extensive user authentication options, and secure identity platform. We recommend SecureAuth for SMBs as well as mid-sized, and enterprise organizations looking to deploy secure single sign-on, enforced by adaptive MFA workflows.
Single Sign-On: Everything You Need To Know (FAQs)
What Is Single Sign-On (SSO)?
Single sign-on enables users to access multiple applications and services with the use of a just a single set of login credentials, usually authenticated via multi-factor authentication to improve login security.
SSO is commonly used in enterprise environments because it improves both security and convenience for employees. Admins can more easily manage which applications users can access, and users no longer have to manage unique, secure passwords for each of their many different corporate accounts and resources.
SSO is often a component of a larger enterprise identity solution, including many of the services listed in the above article. These solutions are typically deployed in the cloud, or within an organization’s internal network and integrate with third-party services to enable seamless deployment across applications.
How Do Single Sign-On Solutions Work?
SSO solutions utilize a trusted relationship between an application and an identity provider. The identity provider authenticates a user, using a single set of credentials and usually requiring a two-factor authentication process. This generates a token, which is then shared with third-party applications.
This token tells the application that the user has been authenticated, and provisions access to the service. Once the user has been authenticated by the identity platform, it will facilitate seamless access with all third-party applications that are integrated with the identity provider.
The concept of a linked digital identity is known as federated identity. Federated identities can be linked across identity providers, making it easier for organizations to manage single sign-on deployments. For example, admins could provision SSO accounts leveraging existing user identities held in Azure Active Directory.
Why Is Single Sign-On Important?
Account takeover attacks rose by 307% between 2019 and 2021, and continue to increase today. Corporate accounts have access to hugely valuable corporate data, and the cost of stolen data can be crippling to organizations, especially for organizations that collect personal data on customers and users.
Single sign-on is an important step for organizations looking to secure authentication processes and prevent account takeover attempts. SSO enforces strong authentication workflows, including adaptive authentication policies and multi-factor authentication workflows, across all connected corporate accounts.
SSO applications also help end-users, who increasingly have to manage hundreds of different accounts and services. With SSO, users no longer need to manage and remember complex passwords, they simply need to remember one set of credentials to authenticate themselves with the identity provider.
What Features Should You Look For In A Single Sign-On Solution?
The core functionality of a SSO solution is to enable users to log in to all of their corporate devices and applications easily, using a single set of secure login credentials. There are several key features to look for in a single sign-on and identity management solution:
- Pre-built integrations: pre-built integrations ensure that you can deploy SSO across supported apps without needing to build and maintain connections yourself.
- Multi-factor authentication: MFA secures the initial login attempt. The best SSO solutions will support multiple authentication methods, including FIDO tokens, biometrics, OTPs, or hardware keys.
- Adaptive authentication: SSO solutions should automatically identify and block malicious login attempts, such as impossible superman logins, and enforce MFA on suspicious logins.
- Identity and access policies: Admins must be able to configure identity and access policies, including passwords, authentication workflows, and connected apps.
- Identity store integrations: SSO should pull identities from existing identity stores such as Azure Active Directory to provision users and pull existing login credentials.
- Lifecycle Management: Admins should be able to provision and deprovision accounts with automated workflows for new users and employees that leave the organization.
- Device Risk Profiling: Admins should be able to view device risk assessments based on suspicious login attempts. Some solutions will also support endpoint management functionality.
- Reporting: Admins should have access to comprehensive reports and analytics providing full context and visibility to authentication workflows. This supports compliance.
- Self-service credential management: Users should be able to manage their own credentials, MFA options, and password resets to save admins time.
How To Choose The Right Single Sign-On Solution?
Choosing the right SSO solution will come down to your organization’s and users’ unique requirements and use cases. Beyond this, there are many factors to consider. The solutions on this list often share many features, but each will have strengths and benefits suited to particular industries and organization-sizes.
Key questions to ask internally are:
- What level of security do you require for controlling access to corporate applications? Do you require a hardware token, or is an OTP enough to authenticate access?
- Are you looking for a custom solution for internal applications?
- Are there specific or niche features that you need, such as blocking logins from certain countries or devices?
- What multi-factor authentication solutions will your users support? Do they have personal smartphones to authenticate via biometrics, or is this against corporate policies?
Knowing the specific requirements of your organization when looking for a solution can help you to narrow down the options. As SSO is often delivered as part of a wider identity management solution, it is important to consider what other access management features your organization needs to secure users and meet compliance requirements.
What Are The Benefits Of Single Sign-On?
Single Sign-On provides a number of benefits to organizations. It improves account security, ease of management, and productivity for the end user. Other benefits of SSO include:
- Improves security by enforcing continuous multi-factor authentication
- Offers adaptive and secure password policies for the SSO workflow
- Prevents usage of weak passwords and shadow IT accounts which cannot be managed by IT teams
- Enables identity governance, giving admins more control over identities and access management policies
- Saves time for IT admins, improving onboarding/offboarding and automating key identity workflows
- End users can easily access all of their accounts from any device from the SSO portal, improving productivity and user experience
Is Single Sign-On Secure?
Single sign-on (SSO) provides a range of security benefits for both the organization and the end user. Compromised passwords are one of the most common causes of a data breach, with the average user having more passwords than they can reasonably be expected to remember or keep secure.
Single sign-on helps to avoid the security risks associated with weak passwords, as each account can have a complex secure password, frequently rotated, without the user needing to remember multiple passwords. This also improves usability for employees, who only need to authenticate once to have access to all of their applications and services. Coupled with robust MFA and conditional access policies, single sign-on can vastly improve the security of digital accounts.
Single sign-on can help organizations adhere to compliance regulations. These often recommend enforcing strong authentication policies to help reduce the risk of account compromise. Some also require that users are automatically logged out of secure devices when no longer needed – single sign-on can enable this feature.
Finally, single sign-on can help IT teams more effectively monitor and manage account access. They can configure policies as to how single sign-on works, assign access to different applications for different teams, and eliminate the need to deal with endless password reset requests.
Single sign-on can vastly improve your account security, ensuring that users do not have to worry about managing a different password for every account. Your industry may have specific challenges and use cases, but when implemented effectively, single sign-on can be a powerful security tool for reducing the risk of account compromise and improving usability for employees.
