---
schema_version: "1"
id: e592f908b93dfbc7191e9fca400215c52d005bba314054fe0da81548134c5a49
title: Authenticate Experience Cloud Site Users
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/experience/264-0-0/networks_authentication_options.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_authentication_options.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 06193e2d4a0db4a5a2f9d2806d352507b3218c58890b07dfa7cef25ee7156b17
description: You have several options for authenticating customers and employees in your Experience Cloud site. Customers are users with Community, Customer Portal, External Identity, or partner portal licenses. By default, they can log in with the username and password that Salesforce assigns them for the Experience Cloud site. Your Salesforce org’s employees are users with full Salesforce licensing capabilities. These users follow the employee login flow using their Salesforce username and password. Beyond these default settings, you can configure SAML, third-party authentication providers, or OAuth to authenticate and authorize all users accessing your site. You can also configure self-registration to use Login Discovery, which makes it easier for users to authenticate.
products:
  - Experiences
release: "264"
---
# Authenticate Experience Cloud Site Users

You have several options for authenticating customers and employees in your Experience Cloud site. Customers are users with Community, Customer Portal, External Identity, or partner portal licenses. By default, they can log in with the username and password that Salesforce assigns them for the Experience Cloud site. Your Salesforce org’s employees are users with full Salesforce licensing capabilities. These users follow the employee login flow using their Salesforce username and password. Beyond these default settings, you can configure SAML, third-party authentication providers, or OAuth to authenticate and authorize all users accessing your site. You can also configure self-registration to use Login Discovery, which makes it easier for users to authenticate.

![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-experience-communities-264-0-0-production-enus/bf7df212-91a1-4fa3-a007-4d6f3e3b470b/images/icon_note.png)

Note

- Session cookies are set at the domain level. When you log in as a different user during the same browser session, the new session cookies replace existing session cookies for that domain. As a result, the original user is logged out of the session.
- The following authentication options also work with custom HTTPS web addresses.

- **[SAML for Experience Cloud Sites](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_auth_configure_saml.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    If your Salesforce org already uses SAML single sign-on (SSO) to simplify and standardize your user authentication, you can extend this capability to your Experience Cloud sites.
- **[Configure SAML SSO Between Salesforce Orgs or Experience Cloud Sites](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.sso_between_multiple_orgs.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    If your company deploys more than one Salesforce org or Experience Cloud site, set up SAML single sign-on (SSO) so users can easily move between them. In this SSO configuration, a single org or site acting as the identity provider authenticates users for one or more orgs or sites in the service provider role. Users can log in to all orgs or sites with a single set of credentials.
- **[Authentication Provider SSO with Salesforce as the Relying Party](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.sso_authentication_providers.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    With authentication providers, your users can log in to your Salesforce org or Experience Cloud site with single sign-on (SSO) using credentials from a third party. Authentication providers also give your users access to protected third-party data. Salesforce offers several ways to configure authentication providers, such as with OpenID Connect or with a custom OAuth 2.0 configuration. Which protocol you can use depends on the third party.

#### See Also

- [Customize Login, Self-Registration, and Password Management for Your Experience Cloud Site](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_customize_login.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Configure the default login, logout, password management, and self-registration options for your site. Or customize the behavior with Apex and Visualforce or Experience Builder (Site.com Studio) pages. You can also use dynamic URLs to brand your pages at run time.")