Why Clients Should Own Their Own Authentication: The Portal Approach to Embedded Wallets and Payments Infrastructure

Owning your own authentication is more than just a technical choice; it's a strategic decision that impacts user ownership, flexibility, control, and security.

October 18, 2024

Why Clients Should Own Their Own Authentication: The Portal Approach to Embedded Wallets and Payments Infrastructure

When building an embedded wallet or payments infrastructure, one of the key decisions is how to handle user authentication. At Portal, we take an auth-agnostic approach, meaning we don't provide or manage authentication services for our clients. Instead, we encourage them to own their authentication process.

Why Auth-Agnostic Matters

Being auth-agnostic means that Portal's stack is built to be flexible and compatible while still easy to integrate with various authentication systems. Whether you're building a Web3 app or a traditional application, you can choose the authentication method that best suits your needs. Our goal is to support a comprehensive authentication experience that enhances your user journey without locking you into a specific authentication method or vendor.

The Benefits of Owning Your Authentication

Avoiding User Ownership Issues

If Portal owns the authentication process, all your users would essentially become Portal’s users. In order for you to access or control anything related to authentication, you would have to rely on us. By managing your authentication, you retain complete ownership of your users and their data, avoiding unnecessary complexity and dependencies.

‍

Flexibility in Choosing Authentication Services

By owning your authentication, you have the flexibility to choose from a wide range of services and select the one that best fits your needs. This flexibility allows you to create a custom authentication experience tailored to your users, rather than being locked into a one-size-fits-all solution.

‍

Enhanced Control and Security

Managing your authentication offers you greater control over how user data is handled and secured. You can implement security measures that align with your specific requirements, ensuring that your users' data is protected to your standards. This level of control is especially important in high value and highly regulated industries where privacy and data protection are critical.

‍

Integration with Portal's Infrastructure

While Portal doesn't provide authentication services, we integrate with whatever authentication system you choose. We use a client session token to authenticate into our SDKs, which allows for cross-device syncing. You can map your authentication system to work smoothly with our infrastructure without needing to hand over control to a third party.

‍

Differentiation from Competitors

Many of our competitors take a different approach by owning the authentication process; they effectively own the user relationship, which can limit your control and flexibility. At Portal, we believe in empowering our clients to maintain ownership over their user base, providing you with greater control over your user relationships and the ability to differentiate your services in the market.

Conclusion

Owning your own authentication is more than just a technical choice; it's a strategic decision that impacts user ownership, flexibility, control, and security. At Portal, our auth-agnostic approach is designed to empower our clients, allowing them to build a more tailored, secure, and differentiated user experience.

‍

By taking control of your authentication, you retain ownership of your users and have the freedom to create a more comprehensive and customized authentication experience that meets your unique needs. View our developer docs here or reach out directly to hear more from Portal!

‍