Connection Types
Connection Types
Choose which protocol your service will use to connect. Each protocol has its own benefits and drawbacks and the choice will depend on your organisation’s requirements and preferences.
OpenID Connect
- Recommended for most connections
- Feature-rich
- Many open-source libraries
Rapid Connect
- Simple: Easy to test and deploy
- Connect your service to our test environment, straight away, for free. There's no need to wait for an approval process.
- Deploy your services anywhere: connect on-premise services, or use cloud providers like AWS, Azure, Google, or Heroku.
- Wide language support: Rapid Connect integrates natively into commonly used development languages like Python, PHP, Java, and Ruby.
- Low code: Set up authentication in as few as 20 lines of Ruby. Implementations in other languages are similarly slim.
- Narrow feature set
- Few open-source libraries
SAML
- Feature rich
- Many open-source libraries
- Allows participation in eduGAIN
- Uses the SAML protocols which are implemented using Shibboleth or SimpleSAMLphp as open source options
- Complex
VerifID
- Verifies a user based on their organisational affiliation
- Provides an API for user verification