When it comes to authenticating someone’s identity, many businesses compare SAML vs SSO. They’re both methods of authentication that make logging into your business network easier and safer for team members. But what’s the difference between them?

What is authentication?

Once a person has identified themselves using their username, your organization then needs to confirm that they are who they say they are. Authentication allows an organization to reliably verify the identity of each team member. This can be done using authentication factors including:

By providing a secret piece of information that only they know or have, the team member verifies their identity to the authentication system and gains access to your network. Permissions are then granted based on the identity created in your organization’s Identity and Access Management system (IAM).

Using authentication protects the valuable data and systems on your network by preventing unauthorized access. In recent years, authentication has become a business-standard tool to meet growing cybercrime challenges.

Employees use dozens of apps, third-party services, and tools every day to work. This leads to them having too many passwords to remember, and IT admins having too many employees to oversee and grant or revoke access for. Many organizations now trust third-party identity systems to perform the task of authenticating and authorizing users. It can be both easier and more secure to outsource authentication to a trusted vendor, and embracing SSO and SAML makes that possible.

What is SSO?

We’ve written before about what SSO is in detail, but to briefly recap: In a business context, SSO is a way to log in to all of your business apps with a single set of credentials. It’s an identity access management (IAM) tool that authenticates your identity once and allows you to access all of your tools seamlessly.

SSO works by acting as an authentication service for your identity provider (IdP). When a team member using SSO logs in to one of their applications, known as a service provider, the application is then redirected to your IdP so the user can authenticate their identity with their single set of credentials. After their identity is authenticated, they won’t need to log in to the application again in that session.

Some of the benefits of SSO include:

  • Eliminating password resets for employees who’ve forgotten one of their many sets of credentials
  • Enforcing stronger password policy standards
  • Streamlining logging in to multiple tools
  • Potentially strengthening your access management if you introduce two-factor authentication (2FA) as an additional authentication method

What is SAML?

SAML stands for Security Assertion Markup Language, and it’s an open standard that transfers authentication data in order to verify your identity. It’s a way to connect an identity provider (IdP) to a service provider (SP) and, much like SSO, it allows you to log in to multiple services with a single set of credentials.

SAML effectively enables SSO, but it isn’t quite the same thing: SSO is an authentication framework that enables logging in to multiple platforms using a single set of credentials, and SAML is a protocol that makes that process possible. It standardizes the process of verifying user credentials and authenticating data between identity providers and service providers.

Some of the benefits of SAML include:

  • Streamlining your data repositories, because all of your user data is in a unified location
  • Easier logging in for everyone in your business network
  • Simplifying onboarding and offboarding, as access to multiple platforms can be granted via one account

How does SSO work with SAML?

SSO and SAML are largely found working together to achieve a smoother login for employees. SAML helps standardized data travel securely between identity providers (IdP) and service providers (SPs), supporting SSO within your business. OAuth is also a reliable choice for enabling SSO and can be used with or instead of SAML depending on your business needs. Access management is totally unique to every organization, and there’s no right way to handle access to your network.

Overall, implementing SSO and SAML is a reliable way to improve password hygiene while protecting your business data. Employees can log in with one set of credentials, simplifying their tasks, while you ensure that their identities are reliably verified and access only granted to those with permission.

The most reliable tool your business can adopt to manage team credentials and access management, as well as enable SSO using SAML, is a secure business password manager. Proton Pass offers SSO for businesses of all sizes, as well as helping you protect your network with team policies, activity logs, and Dark Web Monitoring. Identity and access management can be effective and simple with the right tool — Choose Proton Pass for Business to strengthen your security and make work easier.