{"id":45093,"date":"2025-12-11T11:22:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T10:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/help\/non-knowledgebase\/uncategorized\/what-is-the-difference-between-ldap-and-oauth\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T10:27:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T09:27:24","password":"","slug":"what-is-the-difference-between-ldap-and-oauth","status":"publish","type":"docs","link":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/help\/system-settings\/login-en\/what-is-the-difference-between-ldap-and-oauth\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the difference between LDAP and OAuth?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>ChurchTools supports both the LDAP protocol and OAuth. You can use both methods to sign up to third-party systems such as Nextcloud with your ChurchTools login details. But what exactly is the difference and which method should you use?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>LDAP is a standard protocol that is used to retrieve and authenticate information about users in a directory service. It was primarily developed for local networks and is a robust but rather classic method of authentication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Advantages of LDAP:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Widely used and supported by many systems.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Especially useful if you have local services or systems that do not support modern authentication methods.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Disadvantages of LDAP:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>LDAP does not use token-based security by default<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Can be more complex to configure, especially if SSL\/TLS is used to secure the communication.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">OAuth (Open Authorization)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>OAuth is a modern, token-based protocol that has been specially developed for web and cloud applications. It allows users to securely and easily sign up to third-party systems with their ChurchTools Login details without sharing their passwords. A third-party system can also be used to log in to a ChurchTools system. This can also be another ChurchTools system.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Advantages of OAuth:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Security:<\/strong> By using tokens, your password is never transmitted directly to the third-party system.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Simplicity:<\/strong> Many modern systems such as Nextcloud or Home Assistant support OAuth and offer simple integration.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Flexibility:<\/strong> OAuth is specially designed for secure access to cloud and web services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Disadvantages of OAuth:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Only works if the third-party system supports OAuth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<aside class=\"wp-block-group ct-box ct-box-blue has-background is-vertical is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-002f1c27 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\" style=\"border-radius:8px;border-left-color:#22c55e;border-left-width:0.5rem;background-color:#dcfce7;margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60)\">\n<p style=\"margin-top:0.5rem;margin-right:0.5rem;margin-bottom:0rem;margin-left:0.5rem\"><strong>Our recommendation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"margin-top:0rem;margin-right:0.5rem;margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-left:0.5rem\">If the third-party system you want to use supports OAuth, we recommend that you use OAuth. It is more secure, simpler and better suited for modern applications. LDAP is a good alternative for systems that do not support OAuth, but usually requires more configuration effort.  <\/p>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<aside class=\"wp-block-group ct-artikel-zum-weiterlesen has-background is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-89fd719a wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\" style=\"border-radius:8px;background-color:#f9fafb;margin-top:24px;margin-bottom:24px;padding-top:32px;padding-right:24px;padding-bottom:32px;padding-left:24px\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Read more<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/help\/system-settings\/oauth-login-systemeinstellungen\/what-is-oauth-login-to-third-party-systems\/\" data-type=\"docs\" data-id=\"25486\">What is OAuth? (Login to third-party systems) <\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/de\/help\/verwaltung\/ldap\/0-ldap\/\" data-type=\"docs\" data-id=\"7394\">Overview LDAP<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/de\/help\/verwaltung\/oauth\/login-bei-drittsystem-nextcloud-einrichten-oauth\/\" data-type=\"docs\" data-id=\"25018\">Login to third-party system: Set up Nextcloud (OAuth)<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/de\/help\/verwaltung\/ldap\/0-anbindung-von-nextcloud-an-den-churchtools-login\/\" data-type=\"docs\" data-id=\"7247\">Connection of Nextcloud to the ChurchTools Login<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ChurchTools supports both the LDAP protocol and OAuth. You can use both methods to sign up to third-party systems such as Nextcloud with your ChurchTools login details. But what exactly is the difference and which method should you use? LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) LDAP is a standard protocol that is used to retrieve and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"doc_category":[703],"doc_tag":[],"knowledge_base":[425],"class_list":["post-45093","docs","type-docs","status-publish","hentry","doc_category-login-en","knowledge_base-system-settings"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"year_month":"2026-04","word_count":277,"total_views":"520","reactions":{"happy":"0","normal":"0","sad":"0"},"author_info":{"name":"Stefan Krumsdorf","author_nicename":"skrumsdorf","author_url":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/author\/skrumsdorf\/"},"doc_category_info":[{"term_name":"Login","term_url":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/help\/system-settings\/login-en\/"}],"doc_tag_info":[],"knowledge_base_info":[{"term_name":"System Settings","term_url":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/help\/system-settings\/","term_slug":"system-settings"}],"knowledge_base_slug":["system-settings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/45093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/docs"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45093"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/45093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50122,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/45093\/revisions\/50122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"doc_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_category?post=45093"},{"taxonomy":"doc_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_tag?post=45093"},{"taxonomy":"knowledge_base","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/knowledge_base?post=45093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}