About
Start with Identity is a community-first knowledge portal covering the whole identity field: IAM, CIAM, PAM, IGA, Zero Trust, MFA, machine and non-human identity, identity verification, and decentralized identity.
Most identity content on the internet is written to sell something. Analyst grids sit behind five-figure paywalls, vendor blogs grade their own homework, and the practical detail, what breaks in production, what the migration really costs, what a spec actually requires, rarely makes it into print. We exist to close that gap for practitioners, architects, engineers, CISOs, and product leaders: compare options honestly, learn from people who have run these systems, and build identity that holds up.
Everything here is free to read and free to cite. There is no paywall, no email gate, no sponsorship, and no paid placement of any kind.
What we publish
- Vendor profiles and rankingsEvery platform scored against the same 10-dimension matrix, dated and signed, with the reasoning published.
- Standards, explained properlyOAuth 2.1, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, WebAuthn, FIDO2, and the specs underneath them, read against the RFCs.
- Breaches and live vulnerabilitiesTeardowns of real identity failures, triaged CVEs with patch status, and attack techniques mapped to ATT&CK.
- Implementation and buyer guidesHow to roll out passkeys, run an access review, choose a platform, and survive the migration afterward.
- Regulation and national identityWhat applies where you operate, plus how each country’s digital ID scheme actually works.
- Careers and communityA free jobs board, salary and career guides, practitioner interviews, and an open contributor model.
The Connected S
Our mark is an S for Start, drawn as the path an identity takes. Three points sit on one line, and the light that runs along it is a sign-in moving from start to access.
- Top node: where you startAn account, a credential, a first sign-in. Every journey into a system begins with proving who you are.
- Middle node: the personThe identity at the centre, human or machine. It is the only warm colour in our palette because people are the point.
- Bottom node: what you reachThe apps, data and systems that access opens up once the right identity is confirmed.
The line is identity and access management: the path that should connect a person to what they need. Security is making sure it is the only path.
Logos, colours and usage rules are in the press and brand kit.
Editorial standards
- Practitioner-written, independently editedWritten by people who do this work, reviewed against a published standard before it ships.
- Dated and signedEvery evaluation carries an author, a last-evaluated date, a next-review date, and a confidence level.
- Capability scores come from the same open 10-dimension rubric, so you can weigh them against your own priorities.
- Claims are checkable, conflicts are disclosed on the page that needs it, and sourced corrections from practitioners go to the front of the queue.
No vendor can pay to be added, ranked, changed, or removed. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed on every page it touches.
Who is behind it
Start with Identity was founded by Deepak Gupta, a customer identity platform founder, former CISO, and patent holder in authentication and application security. He sets the editorial direction, funds the project, and writes and reviews alongside everyone else.
The rest is built by volunteer practitioners from across the field, and every one of them is credited by name. The contributors page is the public record: who founded the project, who builds it, what the founder is accountable for, and how to put your own name there.
Where to start
Learn the field
No account, no email, no gate. Pick the thread that matches what you are working on.
- Start hereThe guided path through IAM, CIAM, PAM, IGA, and Zero Trust
- GuidesImplementation and buyer guides written by practitioners
- StandardsOAuth, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, WebAuthn, FIDO2, explained in depth
- GlossaryEvery identity term, defined without the marketing
- Developer recipesCopy-ready implementation patterns for real stacks
- ArticlesDeep dives on the decisions identity teams actually face
Choose a platform
Evaluation material, all built on the same published methodology.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or ideas? Use the contact form, or email community@startwithidentity.com. Hiring for an identity role? Post it free on the jobs board. Want to help build this? See the open volunteer roles. Want it weekly in your inbox? This Week in Identity ships every Tuesday.