Current estimates suggest widespread adoption of open source software (OSS) in organizations worldwide. Compared to sectors such as operating systems and big data, adoption in the security and identity management sector has been low until now. While there were a number of open source projects around libraries for security and identity management-related functionalities, there were only a few projects based on an end-to-end security or identity and access management (IAM) solution. However, in recent years, some open source IAM projects have started to receive mainstream attention. With the arrival of open source options, choosing the right IAM solution for enterprise requirements only on a feature comparison basis is no longer a viable approach since most vendors offer similar functionalities. In contrast, users are now forced to look at other none-feature aspects. Open source IAM solutions provide better alternatives to close-sourced software owing to inherent strengths such as deployment flexibility, extensibility, usability, and lower costs.

This white paper discusses the benefits of adopting an open source IAM solution, how to choose the right open source IAM solution, and how WSO2 Identity Server helps to build a new IAM solution or migrate from an existing proprietary solution.