5-Minute Guide

Intro to FusionAuth

When using FusionAuth, when your user begins the authentication process, you typically send them to FusionAuth. FusionAuth authenticates them and returns them to your application with a token indicating the login was successful.

With this architecture:

• FusionAuth is the only system that sees confidential credentials such as passwords.
• You can add multi-factor authentication (MFA) and other security features in one place.
• Adding, removing and auditing users’ application access occurs in FusionAuth.
• Pre-built functionality like registration, single sign-on, and profile management speeds application development.

FusionAuth is available both as an installable piece of software and a SaaS service, so you have options. The software functionality is the same no matter where you run it.

Choose Your Own Adventure

One of FusionAuth’s unique attributes is the variety of places you can install it. Bare metal, cloud, container: yup. Windows, macOS, Linux: sure! You can learn more about different options in the installation guide. But for this guide, you’ll pick one of three options.

Please choose an option below to explore FusionAuth.

Docker     FastPath     Sandbox

• Docker requires docker and docker compose. This is the best choice if you have docker and docker compose installed.

• FastPath requires a local database (PostgreSQL or MySQL). This is the best option if you have a local MySQL or PostgreSQL database installed and want to get the full installation experience.

• The sandbox, which is a public shared location, with data regularly wiped. This is the best choice if you don’t want to install anything and are okay with other people seeing your test users, applications and data. However, this choice is the quickest way to test drive an integration with FusionAuth without installing anything.

Each of these options will end up at the same place; you’ll have a functioning application with login and logout provided by FusionAuth.

Afterwards, you can dig deeper into a number of areas.

Next Steps

After completing this guide, here are typical next steps.

• setting up self-service registration so you don’t need to add every user via the admin UI

• configuring the theme to make the FusionAuth pages look like your application

• looking at tutorials in other programming languages

• read about FusionAuth core concepts like Tenants and Roles

• researching what kind of login workflow fits your needs

• checking out integration points FusionAuth exposes

There are other docs, covering a variety of topics. Here are some popular ones.

• Customizing JWTs

• Sending and customizing emails

• Logging in with OIDC, SAML and social login providers like Google

• Setting Up MFA/Two-Factor

• Supported OAuth grants

• Single sign-on aka SSO

• Managing user data with the User API

• Premium features