What are the pros (and cons) of using “Sign in with Twitter/Facebook” for a new website?
- by Paul D. Waite
Myself and a friend are looking to launch a little forum site. I’m considering using the “Sign in with Facebook/Twitter” APIs, possibly exclusively (a la e.g. Lanyrd), for user login. I haven’t used either of these before, nor run a site with user logins at all.
What are the pros (and cons) of these APIs? Specifically:
What benefits do I get as a developer from using them? What drawbacks are there?
Do end users actually like/dislike them?
Have you experienced any technical/logistical issues with these APIs specifically?
Here are the pros and cons I’ve got so far:
Pros
More convenient for the user (“register” with two clicks, sign in with one)
Possibly no need to maintain our own login system
Cons
No control over our login process
Exclude Facebook/Twitter users who are worried about us having some sort of access to their accounts
Users’ accounts on our site are compromised if their Facebook/Twitter accounts are compromised.
And if we don’t maintain our own alternative login system:
Dependency on Facebook/Twitter for our login system
Exclude non-Facebook/non-Twitter users from our site
