IDaaS stands for identity as a service, and it means a vendor runs your identity system in the cloud so that you do not install, patch and scale it yourself. The vendor operates the parts that handle sign-in (credentials, multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, federation with other identity providers, token issuance and often user lifecycle), and your applications connect to it over standard protocols such as OpenID Connect and SAML.
The label gets applied to a wide range of products, from a hosted login widget to a dedicated, fully managed identity provider, so it helps to ask which kind you are looking at and what you still control. This post defines the term, separates it from neighbouring terms, and walks through the main ways teams buy it.
What does IDaaS include?
Most IDaaS offerings bundle some or all of the following, run by the vendor on infrastructure you do not manage:
- Authentication: password, passkey and social sign-in, plus multi-factor authentication.
- Single sign-on and federation: acting as the sign-in hub for your applications and accepting sign-ins from other identity providers over SAML or OIDC.
- Token issuance: signed ID tokens and access tokens that your applications and APIs verify.
- User management: a user store, self-service flows such as password reset, and sometimes provisioning through SCIM.
- Audit and monitoring: logs of who signed in and what changed.
The point of buying it is that availability, security patching, scaling and upgrades become the vendor’s job.
How is IDaaS different from workforce IAM and CIAM?
IDaaS describes how identity is delivered (as a cloud service), while workforce IAM and CIAM describe who the users are.
Workforce identity covers a company’s employees and contractors signing in to the tools the company uses. Customer identity and access management (CIAM) covers the people who sign in to a product the company builds, who may number in the millions and who sign up themselves. Either can be delivered as IDaaS, and some vendors cover both. If you are building a product, the part you probably care about is customer login, and our CIAM page covers that side in more depth.
For product teams, the practical distinction is that a workforce tool is designed around one organization’s directory, while a customer-facing system has to handle sign-up flows, social login and, for B2B products, a separate enterprise SSO connection per customer. That is also where the buying models start to differ.
How is IDaaS different from authentication as a service?
Authentication as a service (sometimes called auth-as-a-service) describes the narrower slice: a hosted login that stores credentials, verifies users, runs MFA and hands your app a token. IDaaS is the broader phrase, which also takes in federation, directory features, provisioning and audit. Authentication as a service is therefore a subset of what IDaaS vendors offer, and many IDaaS products start from authentication and grow outward. Vendor marketing uses the two terms loosely, so the reliable test is to ask what you would still have to build yourself, such as per-customer enterprise SSO, group and role mapping or user provisioning.
How is IDaaS different from a full identity provider?
A full identity provider is the system that owns or connects to the user directory, acts as the SSO hub and issues the tokens your applications trust. It can be run by you or by a vendor on your behalf. Some hosted login products are a full IdP underneath, while others are a thinner layer that returns a token but leaves organizations, enterprise connections and provisioning to your own code. See what an identity provider is for the role in detail.
The difference matters because a hosted login that solves sign-in for your first users can fall short when an enterprise customer asks for SAML, automatic deprovisioning and an audit trail.
What are the main ways to buy IDaaS?
Products labelled IDaaS fall into three broad models. We describe them by how they work, not by price, because the way a bill scales matters more over time than any single quote.
Multi-tenant CIAM clouds. You sign up for a shared platform and configure your tenant. Setup is quick and the vendor runs everything, and pricing in this category is commonly tied to monthly active users, so the cost grows with your user count.
Developer SDK layers for B2B. These give you components and APIs for adding login and enterprise SSO to a product quickly. Pricing in this category often grows with the number of enterprise connections you support.
Managed dedicated identity provider on open source. The vendor runs a dedicated instance of an open-source identity provider such as Keycloak for you. You keep standard protocols, a realm configuration you can export and a pricing model tied to plan and cluster size instead of a per-user meter. This is the model Skycloak delivers today through managed Keycloak.
Our roundup of the top IDaaS providers walks through vendors in each category, and cloud identity management compares the delivery models in more detail. If you are weighing alternatives to a specific vendor, see Auth0 alternatives and WorkOS alternatives.
What does a full IdP add once enterprise customers show up?
A small product can run on hosted login for a long time. The pressure usually arrives when a larger customer asks for three things together: single sign-on through their own identity provider, automated user provisioning, and evidence that sign-ins are logged and reviewable.
Meeting those requests cleanly is easier when your product has its own identity provider that issues tokens your applications trust, and each customer’s IdP connects to it as an upstream source. Your applications then integrate once, and adding a customer becomes configuration. See the single sign-on feature page for how that looks in practice, and is Keycloak right for B2B SaaS for when that engine suits a product team.
Where does Skycloak fit?
Skycloak is an identity management as a service provider. Managed Keycloak is the main option we offer today, which means a dedicated Keycloak cluster that we run, patch and upgrade, with Keycloak’s standard SSO, federation and organization features available to your apps. The longer-term direction is a full identity provider for product and workforce login, not hosting as an end in itself.
Frequently asked questions
What does IDaaS stand for?
IDaaS stands for identity as a service (sometimes written identity-as-a-service). It refers to identity and access management delivered as a cloud service operated by a vendor.
Is IDaaS the same as IAM?
IAM (identity and access management) is the discipline of managing who can access what. IDaaS is one way of delivering it, as a hosted service, as opposed to software you run yourself.
Is IDaaS the same as CIAM?
No. CIAM refers to identity for the customers who use a product you build. IDaaS refers to how the identity system is delivered. A CIAM product can be delivered as IDaaS, and so can workforce identity.
Is IDaaS the same as authentication as a service?
Not quite. Authentication as a service is the narrower idea, focused on the sign-in step, while IDaaS also covers federation, directory features and provisioning.
Is IDaaS the same as SSO?
No. Single sign-on is one capability that an IDaaS product usually includes. IDaaS covers the wider set of services around it, such as MFA, federation and user management.
Who needs IDaaS?
Teams that need reliable login and SSO but do not want to operate an identity server. That includes SaaS companies adding customer login or enterprise SSO, and organizations replacing self-managed directories or on-premises identity software.
Can I leave an IDaaS provider later?
It depends on the model. Platforms built on standard protocols and an exportable configuration are easier to leave than ones that tie you to a proprietary user store. It is worth asking any vendor whether you can export your users and configuration before you commit.