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Audit logging and SSO is pretty basic functionality that requires very little (many people would argue no) additional effort or cost to maintain on the developm

by pc86 4y ago

Audit logging and SSO is pretty basic functionality that requires very little (many people would argue no) additional effort or cost to maintain on the development side.

dabeeeenster 4y ago
We just spent about 3 months refactoring our audit logging. If it requires "no" additional effort, you can just fork the project and provide that "no" effort yourself.
dangtony98 4y ago
Surprisingly, audit logging has been deceivingly complex for us. There are many types of events (part of logs) triggered throughout the platform carrying different payloads/formats (e.g. events related to secrets, users, etc.). The variation in such events is increasing with the complexity of the product not to mention costs required to handle accumulating events. Last month, we served 14.2M+ secrets alone through the platform not counting other events — I hope this sheds more light on the audit logging side of things? Re SSO: Totally get this one and I'm aware of the SSO tax — we're still figuring this one out but know currently that it's an absolute must for enterprises.
- pc86 4y ago
  You know what you're definitely right about audit logging. It does seem like one of those "easy on the surface, will absolutely kill you in the details" sorts of things.
- grinich 4y ago
  I know we (WorkOS) have already chatted with you about SSO, but reading this comment I'm realizing we should really also chat about Audit Logs too. We recently built an entire product to make it insanely easy to offer enterprise-grade audit logs to your customers. Plus it includes strongly-typed event payload schemas and log streaming to 3rd-party SIEM vendors. Super fast to integrated with pay-as-you-go pricing based on volume. Vercel and others are using this. https://workos.com/audit-logs https://workos.com/audit-logs I think we have a shared Slack channel set up with Infisical so feel free to DM me there. You can also email me direct: mg@workos.com. (Same goes for anyone else on HN needing this stuff. :))
jacobsenscott 4y ago
Actually I've never seen SAML based sso go completely smoothly. There is always some additional support there. That's not the reason everyone charges for SSO, but it is never plug and play.
dbmikus 4y ago
One of the tenants pricing is you don't charge based on your development cost but based on the value to the customer. So, I don't think it's worth thinking about the complexity of a feature or the cost to maintain in when thinking about pricing besides making sure the maintenance cost is less than what you charge. Generally, the reason all these companies go and charge for SSO and audit logging is because open core is a land and expand strategy. They offer a free tool that's useful for individual developers, and then when they start demanding enterprise features that means they are integrated into the enterprise and have the opportunity to extract value.
grinich 4y ago
I'm the founder of https://WorkOS.com https://WorkOS.com ("Stripe for SSO") and I can definitely say it takes a lot of eng work to build and maintain. The complexity is fractal as you scale to more and more enterprise users with esoteric systems.
- dangtony98 4y ago
  Big fans of WorkOS! Happy to be talking with your team about SSO options for Infisical :) We built out all our OAuth2 integrations with other platforms (different from SSO but something relatable), so we have an idea of how much work it is to maintain these types of “integrations” and related services… Clearly enough to warrant entire solutions like WorkOS dedicated for this exact purpose.
tptacek 4y ago
The cost to maintain and develop SSO has nothing to do with why it's priced the way it is (very few things in our industry are priced strictly according to cost). SSO costs extra because it's one of the most effective market segmentation tools: the people that require SSO in order to use things are generally (though not exclusively) price-insensitive. This upsets people, but the larger companies that pay the SSO premium are subsidizing the smaller companies who don't care. I'd rather not pay an SSO tax either, but I'm even less excited about using tools from companies that are going to vanish because they're not generating revenue.

by pc86 4y ago

Audit logging and SSO is pretty basic functionality that requires very little (many people would argue no) additional effort or cost to maintain on the development side.

dabeeeenster 4y ago

We just spent about 3 months refactoring our audit logging. If it requires "no" additional effort, you can just fork the project and provide that "no" effort yourself.

dangtony98 4y ago

Surprisingly, audit logging has been deceivingly complex for us. There are many types of events (part of logs) triggered throughout the platform carrying different payloads/formats (e.g. events related to secrets, users, etc.). The variation in such events is increasing with the complexity of the product not to mention costs required to handle accumulating events. Last month, we served 14.2M+ secrets alone through the platform not counting other events — I hope this sheds more light on the audit logging side of things? Re SSO: Totally get this one and I'm aware of the SSO tax — we're still figuring this one out but know currently that it's an absolute must for enterprises.

pc86 4y ago
You know what you're definitely right about audit logging. It does seem like one of those "easy on the surface, will absolutely kill you in the details" sorts of things.
grinich 4y ago
I know we (WorkOS) have already chatted with you about SSO, but reading this comment I'm realizing we should really also chat about Audit Logs too. We recently built an entire product to make it insanely easy to offer enterprise-grade audit logs to your customers. Plus it includes strongly-typed event payload schemas and log streaming to 3rd-party SIEM vendors. Super fast to integrated with pay-as-you-go pricing based on volume. Vercel and others are using this. https://workos.com/audit-logs https://workos.com/audit-logs I think we have a shared Slack channel set up with Infisical so feel free to DM me there. You can also email me direct: mg@workos.com. (Same goes for anyone else on HN needing this stuff. :))

jacobsenscott 4y ago

Actually I've never seen SAML based sso go completely smoothly. There is always some additional support there. That's not the reason everyone charges for SSO, but it is never plug and play.

dbmikus 4y ago

One of the tenants pricing is you don't charge based on your development cost but based on the value to the customer. So, I don't think it's worth thinking about the complexity of a feature or the cost to maintain in when thinking about pricing besides making sure the maintenance cost is less than what you charge. Generally, the reason all these companies go and charge for SSO and audit logging is because open core is a land and expand strategy. They offer a free tool that's useful for individual developers, and then when they start demanding enterprise features that means they are integrated into the enterprise and have the opportunity to extract value.

grinich 4y ago

I'm the founder of https://WorkOS.com https://WorkOS.com ("Stripe for SSO") and I can definitely say it takes a lot of eng work to build and maintain. The complexity is fractal as you scale to more and more enterprise users with esoteric systems.

dangtony98 4y ago
Big fans of WorkOS! Happy to be talking with your team about SSO options for Infisical :) We built out all our OAuth2 integrations with other platforms (different from SSO but something relatable), so we have an idea of how much work it is to maintain these types of “integrations” and related services… Clearly enough to warrant entire solutions like WorkOS dedicated for this exact purpose.

tptacek 4y ago

The cost to maintain and develop SSO has nothing to do with why it's priced the way it is (very few things in our industry are priced strictly according to cost). SSO costs extra because it's one of the most effective market segmentation tools: the people that require SSO in order to use things are generally (though not exclusively) price-insensitive. This upsets people, but the larger companies that pay the SSO premium are subsidizing the smaller companies who don't care. I'd rather not pay an SSO tax either, but I'm even less excited about using tools from companies that are going to vanish because they're not generating revenue.