
=== OIDC vs. SAML

Choosing between OIDC and SAML is not just a matter of using a newer, sexier protocol (OIDC) instead of the old, mature, dinosaur (SAML).
{{book.project.name}} has chosen OIDC as the protocol we use to both recommend and write all our extensions on top of.
SAML tends to be a bit more verbose than OIDC.

Beyond verbosity of exchanged data, if you compare the specifications you'll find that OIDC was designed to work with the
web while SAML was retrofitted to work on top of the web.  For example,
OIDC is also much better suited for HTML5/JavaScript applications because it is
much much simpler to implement on the client side than SAML.  Since tokens are in the JSON format,
they can be directly consumed by JavaScript.  Also, you'll find many nice little switches and features that
make implementing security in your web applications easier.  For example, check out the iframe trick that the specification
uses to easily determine if a user is still logged in or not.

SAML has its uses though.  As you see the OIDC specifications evolve you see they implement more and more features that
SAML has had for years.  What we often see is that people pick SAML over OIDC because of the perception that it is more mature
and also because they already have existing applications that are secured by it.
