Authenticate users with Netlify Identity

Last updated: May 2, 2023

Netlify Identity service brings a full suite of authentication functionality, backed by the GoTrue API. This allows you to manage and authenticate users on your site or app, without requiring them to be users of Netlify or any other service. You can use this for gated content, site administration, and more.

For a working example using Netlify Identity service with Git Gateway to manage users in Decap CMS, try deploying this repository:

After selecting Deploy to Netlify above, you can follow the instructions for adding Identity users to the project. Any Identity users you add will have access to edit site content with Decap CMS, without a GitHub account or access to the repository.

That’s one example of something awesome that you can do with Identity service. To add Identity service to your existing web projects, check out the instructions below.

# Enable Identity in the UI

Identity requires HTTPS

Identity service requires HTTPS to be secure. If you’re using a custom domain, make sure you have HTTPS working before integrating Identity service with your site.

Do the following to enable Identity service on your site.

In the Netlify UI, navigate to your site.
Select the Integrations tab.
Search for or navigate to Identity.
On the Netlify Identity integration, select Enable.

This will create an Identity service instance for your site, and allow you to invite Identity users and change settings. To use the service in your site, you can add the Netlify Identity widget to your repository, or develop a custom solution with the gotrue-js library.