Ask HN: No-code, simple-setup user management

1 points by catapart ↗ HN
Hi HN! I'm trying to allow users of my app to store some of their app data on my servers. The app is a local-first, edge app so it does not need to have user data stored on the server, ever, but I wanted to offer it to users that were trying to keep multiple instances of the app in sync.

What I have been looking for is some kind of github project or installable application that I could put on - say - a hostinger server. I would like to be able to SSH into the server and run some command line scripts (and enter the appropriate private data), which would - at the end of the session - allow me to register and login users.

I have been very unsuccessful in finding something like that. Most everything I have found has at least SOME more set up, and most of them try to lock you in to a service of some kind.

My current least-friction option that I can think of would be to do a one-click install for Wordpress (common for hosting services like hostinger or bluehost or ipage or whatever) and then either use any built-in user-management it exposes, or hack into the WP users with an additional API.

Given the scope of wordpress (necessitating size) and the lack of need for its other features, I hesitate to do something like that. But it does seem like every alternative wants you to go around and do actual developer shit, which is not something I'm interested in doing for a "Solved Problem" like user management. I can't think of any reason to reinvent that wheel unless it really is true that nobody has made a simple repository that I can pull, install, and publish which would yield a functioning user management API. But, honestly, it feels like that kind of thing is out there. And I figure, if it is, you guys would know about it.

So I'm open to suggestion, but the toplines here are "needs to manage users (including forgotten passwords, decent security, etc)", and "doesn't need me to develop for it". If anyone can suggest anything like that, I would be very very grateful!

Thanks!

5 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 21.9 ms ] thread
It sounds like what you're looking for is an identity provider.

A popular open source option is https://www.keycloak.org/

This application can manage your users, then you can use standards like OpenID or SAML to plug it into your application, of which there are usually many plugins to accomplish this depending on your tech stack.

Awesome suggestion! Thanks!

I do think this is the kind of thing I was looking for, but it does seem to be a lot more complicated than necessary. Overall, this is a much better fallback than Wordpress, so I really appreciate the recommendation!

Check out WorkOS (I work there. Email in my pfoile if you want to chat.)

https://workos.com/user-management

Wow, this is quite a surprise! I've seen products like this, but nothing with the kind of free tier that is being offered here (for my exact use-case!). That's pretty awesome. I'll definitely give this a try!

I do have some reservations about maybe walking into a lock-in situation, but it looks like there are enough outs to make the easy way worth being the first way. Thanks for the link!

We don't want to lock folks in. You can export your data at any time.