What is the difference between OpenDS, OpenDJ and OpenAM?

Question

Hie Please explain which to use when, OpenDS OpenDJ OpenAM. Thanks.

Dwyer

Answer 1

OpenDJ is an open source project building LDAP and REST base Directory Services. OpenDJ is continuing in open source the development of OpenDS, a project that was started by Sun Microsystems, but abandoned by Oracle.

OpenAM is an open source Authentication, Authorization, Web Single Sign On, Federation solution that is flexible, extensible and highly scalable. For its configuration management, OpenAM embeds OpenDJ. For its user stores, it relies on LDAP directory servers, and is very well integrated with OpenDJ.

[Disclosure: I am product manager at ForgeRock, the company that supports and commercializes OpenDJ and OpenAM]

Algebraic

I think ForgeRock is not supporting OpenAM anymore nowadays in 2018 – Hertha

ForgeRock continues the development and support of both products, and will continue to contribute to the open source projects, with releasing the source code of all versions that are reaching end of support. But ForgeRock supported versions are not available as open source projects, nowadays. – Algebraic

Thanks!! That explains the difference between the github releases and the ForgeRock website releases – Hertha

I am not sure 'abandoned by Oracle' is quite correct. OpenDS is the basis for Oracle's commercial product, Oracle Unified Diectory. If you mean abandoned in the sense that the Open Source project was abandoned, then yes, that is correct. – Kinshasa

Yes OpenDS open source project was completely abandoned, to the point that it's impossible to retrieve anything today. As for the commercial product, none of the developers or support engineers that worked on the open source project are still working at Oracle. – Algebraic

Answer 2

OpenAM is entirely different from that of OpenDJ or OpenDS. Let me clear all your doubts:

OpenAM is an open source access management and federation server platform, backed by ForgeRock. It was sponsored by ForgeRock until 2016.Now it is supported by Open Identity Platform Community.

What exactly OpenAM is ?

OpenAM provides a service called access management, which manages access to resources, such as a web page, an application, or web service, available over the network. Once it is set up, OpenAM provides an infrastructure for managing users, roles, and access to resources.

It centralizes access control by handling both authentication (Confirming the identity) and authorization (Determining whether to grant access to someone who has authenticated).

When you dive deep inside this beautiful service you will find,You can secure your resources and customize it through Open Access Policy and can implement social authentication, Multi-Factor Authentication ,Account Lockout, Single Sign-On etc. and can define Authorization policies in no time .
Moving on to OpenDJ ..

OpenDJ is a directory server which implements a wide range of “Lightweight Directory Access Protocol” (LDAP) and also have support for “Directory Service Markup Language” (DSML). OpenDJ is written in Java language.

It was an internal project started by Sun Microsystems, which is now maintained by ForgeRock.

Let me help you with those big terms like LDAP and Directory :

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (also known as LDAP) is an application protocol. This protocol is used specifically for querying data as well as modifying said data.This is performed by using directory services –that is, a software system that stores, organises, and provides access to the information that is in a directory.

Conclusion:

OpenAM regulates who can access what resource ,when and under what condition while OpenDJ is the high-performance,Highly-available and secure store for identities managed by the organization.

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Wengert