OpenMFA

About the Project Inspiration

The idea for OpenMFA came from our observation that many existing authentication solutions were either too complex for developers to integrate or too weak against phishing attacks. We wanted something both secure and developer-friendly—a platform where a single line of code could drop strong MFA into any login or checkout flow. The rise of passkeys and WebAuthn provided the perfect opportunity to modernize authentication.

Ideation & Refinement

Our team began brainstorming around three core questions:

How do we make MFA phishing-resistant?

How do we simplify developer integration?

How do we design it so users still enjoy a smooth experience?

We sketched multiple flows—first overcomplicating things with too many MFA steps, then gradually refining down to a policy-driven, per-app approach. This balance allowed us to offer flexibility without overwhelming either developers or end-users.

We also realized it wasn’t enough to just make MFA easy to add—we needed to show it in action. That led us to build a demo e-commerce site, where we integrated OpenMFA directly into a login and checkout flow. This proved that developers could integrate strong MFA checks with minimal effort while still keeping the user experience smooth.

How We Built It

The platform was built using:

Next.js (App Router) for the frontend and backend routes.

NextAuth.js for session and OAuth management.

MongoDB for scalable data storage.

SimpleWebAuthn to implement passkey-based authentication.

Nodemailer for email OTPs.

TailwindCSS for UI styling.

We structured the project around modular APIs (/api/v1/*) so new MFA methods can be plugged in easily.

Challenges We Faced

Building OpenMFA wasn’t without hurdles:

WebAuthn complexity: Handling registration and authentication ceremonies correctly was harder than expected.

Session management: Ensuring that challenges, tokens, and sessions were securely tied together required careful planning.

Developer experience: We spent time simplifying the onboarding flow for developers, so integration feels like "just one line of code" rather than a multi-step setup.

Balancing security vs. usability: Too many prompts and users drop off; too few prompts and security weakens. We refined policies multiple times to hit the sweet spot.

What We Learned

Throughout this project, we learned:

How WebAuthn and passkeys fundamentally improve login security.

The importance of clear API design for developer adoption.

That security is also psychological. Users and developers both need confidence that the system is safe and easy.

How to collaborate as a team by iterating, discarding early ideas, and converging on a clear product vision.

In short, we discovered that the future of authentication lies in blending strong cryptography with developer simplicity and user experience, and OpenMFA is our contribution toward that future.