---
title: Providers
slug: /providers
---

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A Provider is an authentication method, a service that is used by authentik to authenticate the user for the associated application. Common Providers are OpenID Connect (OIDC)/OAuth2, LDAP, SAML, and generic proxy provider, and others.

Providers are the "other half" of [applications](../applications/index.md). They typically exist in a 1-to-1 relationship; each application needs a provider and every provider can be used with one application.

Applications can use additional providers to augment the functionality of the main provider. For more information, see [Backchannel providers](../applications/manage_apps.mdx#backchannel-providers).

You can create a new provider in the Admin interface, or you can use the [**Create with provider** option](../applications/manage_apps.mdx#instructions) to create a new application and its provider at the same time.

When you create certain types of providers, you need to select specific [flows](../flows-stages/flow/index.md) to apply to users who access authentik via the provider. To learn more, refer to our [default flow documentation](../flows-stages/flow/examples/default_flows.md).

To learn more about each provider type, refer to the documentation for each provider:

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You can also create a SAML provider by uploading an SP metadata XML file that contains the service provider's configuration data. SAML metadata is used to share configuration information between the Identity Provider (IdP) and the Service Provider (SP). An SP metadata XML file typically contains the SP certificate, the entity ID, the Assertion Consumer Service URL (ACS URL), and a log out URL (SingleLogoutService).
