Window Identity Foundation vs DotnetOpenAuth

Question

Could anybody please tell me the differences between DotNetOpenAuth and Window Identity Foundataion? And also the use cases where one of these two should be preferred.

Thanks In Advace

Answer 1

WIF is a set of .NET classes used for authentication with an STS - like ADFS. It enables the development of claims-based applications i.e. the user authenticates and receives a set of attributes from the identity repository in the form of claims inside a SAML token.

WIIF allows an application to easily integrate with the cloud via e.g. Azure Active Directory.

DotNetOpenAuth is a set of .NET classes used mainly for authorization (or consent). The user authenticates somewhere (DotNetOpenAuth supports OpenID) and is asked if they give permission to send a set of attributes from the identity repository to the application. If they agree the application is passed the attributes in a JSON token.

WIF works well in an Enterprise environment where you want SSO across the Microsoft stack. CRM Dynamics, Office 365, Azure, SharePoint all utilize the claims-enabled paradigm.

DotNetOpenAuth works well with stand-alone applications, obviously ones that require some kind of user consent.