OpenOwl

Infrastructure

access auditing

SHOW HN2023

220points
103comments
#249of 3,109 in 2023
Top 9%of 2023 by points

How HN took it

DebatedReal support and real criticism

8 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 8 critical, out of 28 comments about the project. Thread score +0.01.

Idea: 5 for, 5 againstDocs: 1 for, 1 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 2 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 againstPricing: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Good idea that addresses a real pain point

    From 3 comments
    • I have to say, I understood what this is really fast when I saw the README. It's really a great idea. I'dve been all over it before I :-) :-) retired. It's going to save growing…
      OliverJones on HN
    • I think this is an amazing idea! I am struggling with a similar situation now. Anything that will allow to semi-automate this, and get a periodic report that compares this to…
      dbdoskey on HN
    • Love this idea - was considering trying to build something similar recently.
      LionTamer on HN
  • Recipes approach makes adding integrations easy

    From 2 comments
    • Hey mathiasn, I totally feel your pain! I work with the same kind of solution and know how everything can get way more complex than people think, I really liked the "recipes"…
      goldenCeasar on HN
    • This is cool, in that it might encourage SaaS providers to reduce the SSO tax. Discouraging security affects all of us whose data is held by other companies (ie everybody). I'm…
      lozenge on HN

Objections

  • Requires admin account with 2FA disabled, which is risky

    From 1 comment
    • I really want to like this but the limitations described, requiring an admin account with 2FA disabled, makes this more risky then not using it at all. Until those limitations…
      hnlmorg on HN
  • Scraping-based login flows seem fragile and limited to 7 vendors

    From 2 comments
    • This is cool, in that it might encourage SaaS providers to reduce the SSO tax. Discouraging security affects all of us whose data is held by other companies (ie everybody). I'm…
      lozenge on HN
    • I think your positioning is wrong. The problem this solves is auditing user accounts in SaaS applications. That is a great problem to be solving, and you can position yourself on…
      somegent on HN
  • Name and positioning around SSO are misleading since it is about SCIM and audits

    From 2 comments
    • I think using the term "Skip the SSO Tax.." has done a little disservice to you, and I understand why you chose that term, but this is more "Skip the SCIM tax" I think?…
      Flipflip79 on HN
    • I think your positioning is wrong. The problem this solves is auditing user accounts in SaaS applications. That is a great problem to be solving, and you can position yourself on…
      somegent on HN

Requests

  • Support SSO and API key login flows

    From 2 comments
    • The SSO part is a bit confusing since it sounds like the product is letting you download account and permissions data based on your own api key. It might be helpful if you…
      cheeseblubber on HN
    • That's a good point. Indeed there is a technical focus on login flows at the moment as this seems like the hardest problem to solve. Adding API key flows makes definitely sense…
      mathiasn on HN
  • Clearer README explaining purpose and listing supported services

    From 2 comments
    • I recommend some editing of the readme to clarify the tool's purpose. Initially I thought it might be an AI-generated spoof project since the description made no sense. I think…
      dboreham on HN
    • This is cool, in that it might encourage SaaS providers to reduce the SSO tax. Discouraging security affects all of us whose data is held by other companies (ie everybody). I'm…
      lozenge on HN
  • Simple SSO proxy for self-hosted open source apps

    From 1 comment
    • As one who self-hosts a number of Open Source applications for a small group of family and friends, I would love to have a simple SSO proxy solution. Many "open core"…
      ensignavenger on HN

Questions

  • Why was Elixir chosen

    From 1 comment
    • As a dev who primarily uses Elixir, I was excited to see that you built OpenOwl with it! Out of curiosity, what made you choose Elixir? I wanted to use Elixir to build my PDF…
      Nezteb on HN
  • How does it handle SSO, given it is not SSO

    From 2 comments
    • The SSO part is a bit confusing since it sounds like the product is letting you download account and permissions data based on your own api key. It might be helpful if you…
      cheeseblubber on HN
    • How does that solve the problem SSO typically solves? It seems you're trying to replace it by syncing users from different tools? That seems worse than SSO and is unlikely to be…
      ThePhysicist on HN

Alternatives named

  • Resmo

    From 1 comment
    • That's what we try to simplify at Resmo. We integrate with 80+ most popular tools a company might be using. Of course there are some we don't cover yet. Only 3 tools requires…
      CSDude on HN
  • Baton by ConductorOne

    From 1 comment
    • I think your positioning is wrong. The problem this solves is auditing user accounts in SaaS applications. That is a great problem to be solving, and you can position yourself on…
      somegent on HN
  • Cerby

    From 1 comment
  • Glim

    From 1 comment
    • https://github.com/doncicuto/glim : > Glim is a simple identity access management system that speaks some LDAP and has a REST API to manage users and groups "Proxy LDAP to limit…
      westurner on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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