MFA without Commercial Products – Doing it All Yourself with Keycloak

Acme Corporation has relied heavily on cloud service providers’ commercial products and default services for its identity and access management (IAM) infrastructure. While these solutions have served their purpose, Acme’s management is eager to explore open source alternatives that offer flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and a vital feature set for its expanding business needs.

In this chapter, we will dive into Keycloak, an open source IAM solution licensed under Apache License 2.0 (at the time of writing). Developed and maintained by the Keycloak community, this powerful tool aims to simplify the complex world of authentication and authorization for both customers and the workforce. By examining Keycloak’s features, implementation process, and how it compares to commercial products, Acme hopes to make an informed decision on whether it is the right choice for the organization.

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