What is the difference between SSO and SAML? | Gartner Peer Community (2024)

Chief Information Officer in Healthcare and Biotech4 years ago

Security Assertion Mark-up Language (SAML) is an authentication standard that allows for federated identity management and can support single sign-on (SSO). SSO is an authentication scheme that allows a user to log in with a single ID and password to any independent or federated software systems. In most use cases, SAML is used to provide SSO capabilities across independent systems.

Chief Information Officer in Healthcare and Biotech4 years ago

SAML a programme language, SSO a more generic term and usually involves an agent/client install and a form of “screen-scraping” after learning the login sequence, emulating an end user.

Director, Security Operations in Telecommunication4 years ago

In line with the other, earlier comments - two entirely different things, one is a programming language used to support federation, IDAM and SSO and SSO, Single SIgn On is a generic term or label for various tech solutions which allow for an organization to provide a single set of credentials to a user for access to multiple systems.

Sr. Director, Head of Global Omnichannel Capabilities Delivery Center in Manufacturing4 years ago

Programming language vs ability to do single sign on for SSO

VP of IT Operations in Software4 years ago

At a 10,000 foot view these are used interchangably-- BUT they are different. SAML is a specific program language, whereas SSO is more generically used to refer to a wide set of tools that unify logins across multiple systems