SAML vs. OpenID Connect: Which SSO Protocol Should You Support?

When an enterprise customer asks you to "support SSO," they usually mean one of two things: SAML 2.0 or OpenID Connect (OIDC). Both accomplish the same goal — letting users authenticate with their company's identity provider — but they work very differently. Here's how to choose.

SAML 2.0: The Enterprise Standard

SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) has been the enterprise SSO standard since the mid-2000s. It uses XML-based assertions to communicate authentication state between an identity provider (IdP) and a service provider (SP).

Strengths:

• Universal enterprise support — every major IdP speaks SAML (Okta, Azure AD, OneLogin, PingFederate)
• Mature and battle-tested over 20 years
• Rich attribute mapping for passing user data
• Well-understood by enterprise IT teams

Weaknesses:

• XML-heavy — verbose and complex to parse
• No built-in token format — you get assertions, not JWTs
• Session management is awkward (single logout is notoriously fragile)
• Mobile/SPA support is poor

Best for: Enterprise customers with existing SAML-based IdPs, compliance requirements that mandate SAML, and B2B integrations with large organizations.

OpenID Connect: The Modern Choice

OIDC is an identity layer built on top of OAuth 2.0. It uses JSON-based tokens (JWTs) and RESTful endpoints, making it a natural fit for modern web and mobile applications.

Strengths:

• Simple, clean protocol design
• JWT-based tokens are easy to validate and introspect
• Built-in discovery (.well-known/openid-configuration)
• First-class mobile and SPA support
• Dynamic client registration

Weaknesses:

• Less mature in enterprise environments (though adoption is rapidly growing)
• Some legacy IdPs don't support OIDC
• Token validation requires understanding of JWT security

Best for: Modern applications, mobile apps, SPAs, developer tools, and organizations using cloud-native identity providers.

The Answer: Support Both

In practice, you'll need both protocols. Your enterprise customers in regulated industries will require SAML. Your developer-focused customers and internal tools will prefer OIDC. And many identity providers (Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra ID, Okta) support both.

Calimatic Identity supports both protocols natively:

• SAML 2.0 Service Provider — Configure SAML SSO connections in the admin panel with metadata URL import, attribute mapping, and certificate management.
• OIDC Relying Party — Connect to any OIDC-compliant IdP with automatic discovery and configuration.
• Pre-built Connectors — Google Workspace and Microsoft Entra ID work with a few clicks.
• LDAP Directory Sync — For organizations that haven't adopted federated SSO yet.

The best part? From your application's perspective, it doesn't matter which protocol the user authenticated with. Calimatic Identity normalizes the experience — your app always gets a consistent session with the same user attributes regardless of the upstream protocol.

Getting Started

Setting up SSO in Calimatic Identity takes minutes:

1. Navigate to the SSO page in the admin panel
2. Create a new connection (SAML or OIDC)
3. Enter the IdP metadata URL or configure manually
4. Map attributes (we auto-detect common mappings)
5. Test the connection with a single click

Check our documentation for step-by-step guides for each supported identity provider.