The best testimonial we have ever received
By Connor Cameron —
The following is the unedited testimonial of Caleb Sakala.
It was such an incredible piece of writing that we decided it was worthwhile sharing in full, for those who would like to read it.
You can find Caleb on LinkedIn.
I said I would write a testimonial of my experience if I got Kinde to work for me, and well, here I am. Here is a 600-word testimonial.
”Why am I doing this?” Because I’m grateful to Kinde; and if you guys ever decide to create a testimonial page then there might be some snippets in here that will encourage people to switch over to Kinde.
You and the guys over at Kinde have my full consent to use this, or excerpts of this for advertisement purposes, or to ignore it completely - of course. Here we go.
My name is Caleb Sakala and I am a Zambian, 20-year-old software student.
I created a website where prospective students can find universities that meet their criteria. I wanted the site (which I call Multiversity) to be a bit like a social media in that people could create accounts, post opportunities for other people to see, like other posts, or delete the posts they’ve made.
Now, despite making impressive progress in building the website from the ground-up, there was a gaping inadequacy.
My login page had “Sign in with Google”… and that was it. Just… sign-in with Google.
I added a little “More options coming soon!” below the Google logo to alleviate the disappointment I was sure that some of my users would feel when they saw such an empty and unprofessional sign in page; but deep down, I knew I had no idea of how I’d add in more sign-in options.
Until the time I first saw Kinde, all the experience I had of authentication was fifteen minutes of an online tutorial on Udemy.
I tried using other authentication providers (which will remain unnamed) whilst trying to do it on my own with the libraries available to me. There was always - and I mean always - something in the way: daunting verification procedures, error messages that were about as helpful as telling me to bang my head on the wall, billing plans too large for a website built by a university student, and at the end of it all, I truly believed that I was stuck.
My only choice was to keep up the “More options coming soon!” lie for as long as I could.
Then… along came Kinde.
It took me less than a day to see the value here. Even as a beginner to programming, I immediately got the sense that Kinde was truly made for devs.
Looking through the documentation - which overwhelmed me initially - made me realise that Kinde is extremely well-documented. The whole website was organised. Instructions were clearly written; the code snippets were up to date and most importantly… they. worked. perfectly.
I already had my own authentication system set up when I was thinking of switching to Kinde and true to what Kinde says, getting set up with Kinde was extremely easy. I had the authentication working in roughly ten minutes.
I had passwordless sign-ins. I had sign-ins with Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. I even had ‘Sign-in with Tinder’! (Just kidding on that last one). Kinde’s Admin Home Page is beautiful, customising my brand and adding a custom domain was quick. Migrating the system I already had into Kinde was an effortless endeavour.
After all those weeks of banging my head on the wall, using Kinde felt like getting a head massage from a spa. When I had a question (and I had a LOT of questions), support was available - unlike the cold corporations that seem to do all they can to stop you from getting personalised support.
When I raised an issue, they were on it. When I messaged them, they got back to me. What shocked me the most was that there even appeared to be a slider in the settings that allowed me to remove Kinde branding from the Kinde services on my website! However, after all they provided, I found myself unwilling to remove their branding from my website.
I hope devs look at my website and they see Kinde.
I hope devs read this and give it a try.
Kinde’s services lower the barrier to entry for innovative developers with ideas like mine.
Kinde’s services give websites a whole new level of modern professionalism.
Kinde’s services are truly auth built in this century, and if they can get auth working for a literal beginner with no experience in the field, there is no excuse not to use Kinde.
Thank you Caleb, for one of the most incredible testimonials I have ever seen.