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have you looked at the codebase? it's been a while but I was implementing Keycloak a few years ago and it was shocking how big the codebase is and how difficult

have you looked at the codebase? it's been a while but I was implementing Keycloak a few years ago and it was shocking how big the codebase is and how difficult it is to change things to add what felt like basic functionality. making plugins didn't seem like a viable option either. oh not to mention the statefulnes of it, it was almost impossible to destroy and re create an instance from scratch without a bunch of manual point and click via the UI.

theK 3y ago
Had a similar experience and even filed a couple of bugs back then. I don't know the current state but back then it felt like having something that looked like halfway modern Java but still carried around large amounts of old school JEE cruft. Probably was the migration to quarkus though. So it probably got better?
diurnalist 3y ago
Keycloak solves a complex problem. It is built on a plugin architecture, so plugins are certainly a viable option and this is documented in more detail here[0]. In general I have found the Keycloak docs thorough and well-written. When I operated Keycloak I built a few plugins to solve specific needs/assumptions we had around IdP when migrating to Keycloak from a bespoke solution. Re: your second point, the docs also describe this in detail[1]. Having the realm data exist in a simple form that can be exported/imported was very useful. However, I would have liked if they thought more about how to do live backup/restore; perhaps that is easier now than it was at the time. [0]: https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/index.html#_providers https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/inde... [1]: https://www.keycloak.org/server/importExport#_importing_a_realm_during_startup https://www.keycloak.org/server/importExport#_importing_a_re...
- raziel2p 3y ago
  The docs can say whatever it wants, there were large parts of our configuration that wasn't included in an export, so we couldn't automate provisioning.
- apitman 3y ago
  > Keycloak solves a complex problem. A lot of problems, actually, and most people don't have many of them. If you just want an OIDC server in front of your self-hosted apps you can solve that with a much simpler and faster tool.
edgurgel 3y ago
Interesting... I had the exact opposite impression. The codebase is big but very easy to understand and their SPIs[1] enable to customise Keycloak's behaviour quite easily. For the statefulness using terraform[2] solves the problem for me. [1] - https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/#_providers https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/#_pr... [2] - https://github.com/mrparkers/terraform-provider-keycloak https://github.com/mrparkers/terraform-provider-keycloak

theK 3y ago

Had a similar experience and even filed a couple of bugs back then. I don't know the current state but back then it felt like having something that looked like halfway modern Java but still carried around large amounts of old school JEE cruft. Probably was the migration to quarkus though. So it probably got better?

diurnalist 3y ago

Keycloak solves a complex problem. It is built on a plugin architecture, so plugins are certainly a viable option and this is documented in more detail here[0]. In general I have found the Keycloak docs thorough and well-written. When I operated Keycloak I built a few plugins to solve specific needs/assumptions we had around IdP when migrating to Keycloak from a bespoke solution. Re: your second point, the docs also describe this in detail[1]. Having the realm data exist in a simple form that can be exported/imported was very useful. However, I would have liked if they thought more about how to do live backup/restore; perhaps that is easier now than it was at the time. [0]: https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/index.html#_providers https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/inde... [1]: https://www.keycloak.org/server/importExport#_importing_a_realm_during_startup https://www.keycloak.org/server/importExport#_importing_a_re...

raziel2p 3y ago
The docs can say whatever it wants, there were large parts of our configuration that wasn't included in an export, so we couldn't automate provisioning.
apitman 3y ago
> Keycloak solves a complex problem. A lot of problems, actually, and most people don't have many of them. If you just want an OIDC server in front of your self-hosted apps you can solve that with a much simpler and faster tool.

edgurgel 3y ago

Interesting... I had the exact opposite impression. The codebase is big but very easy to understand and their SPIs[1] enable to customise Keycloak's behaviour quite easily. For the statefulness using terraform[2] solves the problem for me. [1] - https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/#_providers https://www.keycloak.org/docs/latest/server_development/#_pr... [2] - https://github.com/mrparkers/terraform-provider-keycloak https://github.com/mrparkers/terraform-provider-keycloak