Quick Guide — Adding User Authentication to Your Streamlit App

This post is a condensed summary of my full article “3 Ways to Implement User Authentication with Streamlit.” If you want the code samples and a deeper trade-off analysis, head over to the complete piece. Streamlit makes it almost absurdly easy to turn a Python script into a living web application, but unless your tool is a one-off demo, you need to know who’s using it. Below is a whistle-stop tour of the three approaches to authentication, distilled from a longer piece I just published. Use it to pick the right path, then head over to the full article for hands-on code and deeper trade-offs. 1. Open ID Connect (OIDC) What it is The protocol Streamlit now supports natively (≥ v1.32). Login is delegated to any OIDC-compliant identity provider — Google Identity, Auth0, Azure AD, Okta, Keycloak… Why do teams like it You reuse a single sign-on (SSO) system your company already trusts, so passwords stay out of your codebase. Snags No IdP, no party — you must provision one and wire up every new app. Role metadata, SAML bridges, multi-tenant rules, etc., vary wildly by IdP, so feature parity across projects is hard. 2. Streamlit Authenticator What it is A community package that bakes username-and-password login directly into your Streamlit code with a handful of lines and a YAML file. Why do teams like it Zero external services; perfect for hack days or proof-of-concepts that won’t hit the public internet. Snags No SSO, no social logins, no SAML. You must roll your own “forgot-password” flows, profile edits, audit logs… and redeploy for every user change. That innocuous YAML turns into a bookkeeping nightmare once you pass a dozen users. 3. Squadbase What it is Squadbase is a deployment platform built for internal AI and data apps (Streamlit, Next.js, even Ollama). Connect a Git repo; Squadbase builds, hosts, and guards the URL behind its own auth layer. Why do teams like it Authentication and SSO out of the box , no code changes. Project-level roles you can query via SDK — neatly separated from “who can deploy” platform roles. Automatic runtime logs and per-user analytics in one dashboard, so ops and product folks speak the same language. Snags It’s an external platform, so you’ll evaluate it the same way you would Vercel or Netlify — pricing, region coverage, vendor fit, the usual diligence. Decision Cheat-Sheet Org already runs Okta / Azure AD etc., and you only need basic gating → OIDC Hackathon, internal demo, or “let’s-just-ship-it” prototype → Streamlit Authenticator Multiple internal apps, role-based logic, need logs & analytics, minimal DevOps → Squadbase One More Step — Deep Dive & Copy-Paste Code This is just the appetizer. The full article walks through: Copy-ready code snippets for OIDC and Streamlit Authenticator Environment-variable tricks for portable deployments A look at how Squadbase wires up project roles and analytics under the hood A pros/cons matrix to help you defend the decision to your security team

May 8, 2025 - 10:33

Quick Guide — Adding User Authentication to Your Streamlit App

This post is a condensed summary of my full article “3 Ways to Implement User Authentication with Streamlit.” If you want the code samples and a deeper trade-off analysis, head over to the complete piece.

Streamlit makes it almost absurdly easy to turn a Python script into a living web application, but unless your tool is a one-off demo, you need to know who’s using it. Below is a whistle-stop tour of the three approaches to authentication, distilled from a longer piece I just published. Use it to pick the right path, then head over to the full article for hands-on code and deeper trade-offs.

1. Open ID Connect (OIDC)

What it is

The protocol Streamlit now supports natively (≥ v1.32). Login is delegated to any OIDC-compliant identity provider — Google Identity, Auth0, Azure AD, Okta, Keycloak…

Why do teams like it

You reuse a single sign-on (SSO) system your company already trusts, so passwords stay out of your codebase.

Snags

No IdP, no party — you must provision one and wire up every new app.
Role metadata, SAML bridges, multi-tenant rules, etc., vary wildly by IdP, so feature parity across projects is hard.

2. Streamlit Authenticator

What it is

A community package that bakes username-and-password login directly into your Streamlit code with a handful of lines and a YAML file.

Why do teams like it

Zero external services; perfect for hack days or proof-of-concepts that won’t hit the public internet.

Snags

No SSO, no social logins, no SAML.
You must roll your own “forgot-password” flows, profile edits, audit logs… and redeploy for every user change.
That innocuous YAML turns into a bookkeeping nightmare once you pass a dozen users.

3. Squadbase

What it is

Squadbase is a deployment platform built for internal AI and data apps (Streamlit, Next.js, even Ollama). Connect a Git repo; Squadbase builds, hosts, and guards the URL behind its own auth layer.

Why do teams like it

Authentication and SSO out of the box , no code changes.
Project-level roles you can query via SDK — neatly separated from “who can deploy” platform roles.
Automatic runtime logs and per-user analytics in one dashboard, so ops and product folks speak the same language.

Snags

It’s an external platform, so you’ll evaluate it the same way you would Vercel or Netlify — pricing, region coverage, vendor fit, the usual diligence.

Decision Cheat-Sheet

Org already runs Okta / Azure AD etc., and you only need basic gating → OIDC
Hackathon, internal demo, or “let’s-just-ship-it” prototype → Streamlit Authenticator
Multiple internal apps, role-based logic, need logs & analytics, minimal DevOps → Squadbase

One More Step — Deep Dive & Copy-Paste Code

This is just the appetizer. The full article walks through:

Copy-ready code snippets for OIDC and Streamlit Authenticator
Environment-variable tricks for portable deployments
A look at how Squadbase wires up project roles and analytics under the hood
A pros/cons matrix to help you defend the decision to your security team