Skip to comparison
ZOREAL

ZOREAL Identify

Alternatives to Sign in with Apple

Sign in with Apple lets a person sign in to apps and websites with their Apple Account, unlocked on device with Face ID, Touch ID or Optic ID, with two-factor authentication built in and the option to share a relay email address instead of their own. ZOREAL Identify is a "Continue with ZOREAL" button on standard OpenID Connect, backed by the ZOREAL ID credential, that returns a pairwise pseudonymous identifier for a human verified against a government document chip, with the assurance of each login stated in the token. This page sets the two side by side: what each token proves, what personal data it releases, how each handles email, and what each costs.

Information last reviewed 10 September 2026. Compared: Sign in with Apple (the native button, Sign in with Apple JS and the REST API) with ZOREAL Identify. Apple Wallet IDs (driver’s licences and Digital ID in Wallet), App Store distribution and Apple’s group revenue are out of scope.

See ZOREAL Identify
35 other alternatives

Where ZOREAL Identify and Sign in with Apple differ

  • The guarantee

    ZOREAL guarantees that the person is real, is not an AI, exists, and is linked to a government-issued ID. One hundred percent, not ninety-nine point nine. ZOREAL is the only solution in the world today that can give that guarantee.

  • Account signal, or verified human

    Apple’s real user status takes three values: "The user appears to be a real person." (likelyReal), unknown, and unsupported; the page we reviewed states no mechanism behind it, and no document check or liveness is stated for Sign in with Apple. ZOREAL’s ID token states per login how the human was authenticated, in acr and amr: a fresh liveness capture face-matched to the document read at enrolment, a registered hardware-key approval, or a remembered session, on top of the chip verification recorded at enrolment.

  • Keeping the email private

    Sign in with Apple lets the person share "a unique, random email address that automatically relays messages" to their own, an address ending in @privaterelay.appleid.com, and shares name and email on the first login only. ZOREAL never puts email in the ID token: email is a disclosed-identity scope served from userinfo to a confidential client with a verified domain, and the person sees the request before approving.

  • What the relying party pays

    Apple states no separate fee for Sign in with Apple; it is a capability of the Apple Developer Program at "99 USD per membership year, or in local currency where available" (developer.apple.com, September 2026). ZOREAL: Free to enrol, free Tier A logins; only Tier B logins charged; current prices are on the ZOREAL price list at zoreal.com/pricing.

Side by side

Comparison of ZOREAL Identify and Sign in with Apple, based on public materials reviewed on 10 September 2026.

AttributeZOREAL IdentifySign in with Apple
How the identity is boundEnrolment, in the ZOREAL ID app: the document is photographed, its machine-readable zone read and its chip read over NFC. The server re-runs Passive Authentication against its own trust store built from the ICAO Public Key Directory, so the issuing country’s signature over the data is checked on ZOREAL’s side, and the chip proves possession of its private key. A liveness capture with presentation-attack detection is face-matched 1:1 against the chip portrait. The device key is generated in the phone’s hardware, its attestation is verified at registration, and every evidence call carries an app-integrity assertion. Each verified document yields two holder certificates over that key under ZOREAL’s two roots (ECDSA P-384 and ML-DSA-87), one pseudonymous and one carrying the legal name, valid until the document expires. Login: ZOREAL is the OpenID Provider. The holder approves on their phone, a stock OIDC library validates the ID token against ZOREAL’s JWKS, the relying party sets the assurance per request with acr_values, max_age and prompt, and a request that cannot meet its floor is denied, never downgraded. The subject is pairwise per sector, so one ZOREAL ID is reused at every service without being linkable across them; consent is remembered per sector and re-prompted on any new scope.Proof of control of an Apple Account, protected by the account’s two-factor authentication and unlocked on device with Face ID, Touch ID or Optic ID. The app receives "an identity JSON Web Token (JWT), single-use authorization grant code", the request state and a user identifier (Authenticating users with Sign in with Apple; Human Interface Guidelines). A document check is not stated in the public materials we reviewed.
What the token provesTwo halves. Proof that a real human is there: the ID token asserts this is one human (not one account, not one device), with the strength of that claim in a uniqueness field; that a government document chip was read and its authenticity verified, at the month given; and how this session was authenticated, in acr and amr, whether a live human was captured for this login, a registered device key was used, or a session was reused. And, when the relying party requests it and the person consents on the phone, the verified identity: name, birthdate and document details read from the chip, served from userinfo to a confidential client with a verified domain. The person sees every requested claim before approving, and the relying party receives only the scopes it was granted. It is not KYC, not a legal signature, not proof that the person consented freely, and not proof that the person is the one operating the browser.Control of an Apple Account with two-factor authentication. Real user status adds a three-valued signal: "The user appears to be a real person." (likelyReal), "The system hasn’t determined whether the user might be a real person." (unknown), or unsupported (ASUserDetectionStatus). It is described as a signal about the account, not as a document or face verification.
GuaranteeZOREAL guarantees that the person is real, is not an AI, exists, and is linked to a government-issued ID. One hundred percent, not ninety-nine point nine.Apple’s real user status returns likely real, unknown or unsupported; the mechanism behind it, and any verification of the person against a document or by liveness, is not stated in the public materials we reviewed (ASUserDetectionStatus; Human Interface Guidelines).
Who issues the credentialZOREAL is the issuer of the ID card: a reusable identity credential that logs in to other websites, with the person controlling the scopes each login discloses.Apple issues the identity token for an Apple Account the person created and protects with two-factor authentication; the app receives a user identifier (Authenticating users with Sign in with Apple).
Personal data releasedNone in the ID token, ever: a pairwise pseudonym per sector plus the assurance block. Name, birthdate, document fields and email are served only from userinfo, against a ten-minute single-audience access token with no refresh token, and only to a confidential client with a verified domain. Age is returned as registered yes-or-no thresholds, never an age or a birth year.Name and email address are shared "the first time the user logs in"; on later logins the identity token carries the email but "doesn’t include other information about the user, such as their name". The email may be a Hide My Email relay address ending in @privaterelay.appleid.com (Authenticating users with Sign in with Apple; Apple Support).
Identifier across appsOne ZOREAL ID serves every service: a returning person at a consented sector approves on their phone without a new capture, or silently when the relying party asks for it; the identifier is stable within the relying party’s registered sector and different at unrelated sectors, so the credential is reused without being linkable across servicesThe same Apple Account is used across apps and the app receives a user identifier; whether that identifier differs per developer, and any uniqueness guarantee per person across Apple Accounts, is not stated in the public materials we reviewed.
Cost to enrolEnrolment in the ZOREAL ID app is always free for the person holding the identity: document scan, chip read and liveness enrollment, re-enrollment, recovery and revocation. Every Tier A login is free without limit on every plan: the pairwise identifier, the assurance block, age-threshold answers and nationality, with 1 client configuration on Free. Answering an identity request is always free for the person.An Apple Account is created by the person; a fee for the account is not stated in the public materials we reviewed. For the integrator, Sign in with Apple is a capability of the Apple Developer Program at "99 USD per membership year, or in local currency where available" (developer.apple.com, September 2026).
Cost per sign-inEnrolment is free: "The ZOREAL ID app is always free for the person holding the identity, from enrollment to recovery", and "Document scan, chip read and liveness enrollment" is "Always free" on Free and Premium. Every Tier A login is free, without limit, on every plan: the pairwise identifier, the assurance block, age-threshold answers and nationality (openid, zoreal.age and zoreal.nationality, available to every registered client). Tier A logins are never charged. A charge applies only to a qualified Tier B login, where the relying party requests identity disclosure (the profile scopes, name, birthdate and document details, and email, which require a verified domain, a confidential client and client authentication), on Premium: "Identify · Identity disclosure", "Name, birth date and document details", "One charge for name, birth date or document details, even when several are returned"; "Identify · Fresh-liveness login", "Coming soon"; "Content and contract signing authorization", "Coming soon". Client configurations per website or app: 1 on Free, 10 on Premium; private-key JWT and mTLS client authentication on Premium. Premium is priced per user, monthly or yearly, with two months free on yearly billing; every organization member is a paid Premium seat; metered usage is charged separately. Enterprise: contact us. Answering an identity request is always free for the person. Current prices are on the ZOREAL price list at zoreal.com/pricing. ZOREAL Identify is the cheapest way to do KYC in the market: free to enrol, free to check, paid only for the higher disclosure tiers.No per-sign-in fee stated as of September 2026. The cost to an integrator is Apple Developer Program membership, 1 x 99 USD = 99 USD per membership year, which also covers app distribution (developer.apple.com).
Platforms and data useStandard OpenID Connect from the provider at id.zoreal.com (discovery, JWKS, token and userinfo endpoints); any stock OIDC library validates the token. One client library per platform: @zoreal/oauth2-react, @zoreal/oauth2-js and @zoreal/oauth2-react-native on npm for the front end, and backends for Node (@zoreal/oauth2-node), Ruby (zoreal-oauth2), Python (zoreal-oauth2), PHP (zoreal/oauth2), Go, Java (com.zoreal:oauth2) and .NET (Zoreal.OAuth2). The React package renders the button and drives the flow itself, with no hosted script and nothing to allowlist in a Content Security Policy. Registration is self-serve in the dashboard (Identify, Assets): redirect addresses, origins and permitted scopes, with domain verification; personal-data scopes require a verified domain and a confidential client. ZOREAL, as the OpenID Provider, sees every login: which holder, which relying party, when; the subject is pairwise per sector so one ZOREAL ID is reused at every service without being linkable across them.iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, watchOS and the web, with Sign in with Apple JS and the REST API for non-Apple platforms such as Android. "Apple doesn’t use Sign in with Apple to profile people or their activity in apps." (Human Interface Guidelines). Retention periods are not stated in the public materials we reviewed.

Third-party details on this page reflect what each provider publicly stated on the review date shown above and may have changed since. Where a provider does not state something publicly, this page says so rather than assuming. Statements about what Sign in with Apple offers reflect its public materials on the review date; absence of a feature from those materials does not mean it is unavailable. ZOREAL's current prices are on the ZOREAL price list.

Where ZOREAL Identify and Sign in with Apple agree

Sign in with Apple is a convenient sign-in that costs the person nothing: one button, an Apple Account they already hold, a device unlock, and an identifier with a profile handed to the app. ZOREAL Identify takes the same shape on the sign-in page and is also free for the person from enrolment onward. Both bind the login to something on the person’s device: Face ID, Touch ID or Optic ID for Apple, and the enrolled phone’s hardware-bound, biometric-gated key for ZOREAL.

Both keep personal data to what the person agrees to share. Apple shares name and email once and offers a relay address; ZOREAL’s ID token carries no personal data and serves name, birthdate, document fields and email only from userinfo to a confidential client with a verified domain. Both state that the provider does not profile the person across apps: Apple in its Human Interface Guidelines, ZOREAL through a subject that is pairwise per sector. Neither asserts a legal signature, and neither is KYC.

What differs is the assurance behind the identifier. Apple’s token proves control of an Apple Account with two-factor authentication and adds a three-valued real user status signal with no stated mechanism; ZOREAL’s token states that a human was verified against a government document chip and how this particular login was authenticated. A relying party can run both, because they answer different questions.

ZOREAL Identify may fit you if

  • You need to know that a real human verified against a government document chip is behind the account, with the strength of each login stated in acr and amr
  • You want an identifier that is stable at your service and different at unrelated services, with no personal data in the ID token
  • You want age thresholds and nationality as yes-or-no answers without a birthdate, on the free tier
  • You want the pricing structure published: Tier A logins free and unlimited, with a charge only on a Tier B login where identity disclosure is requested, and no membership fee

Sign in with Apple may fit you if

  • You ship an iOS app that offers Google or Facebook login, and App Store Review Guideline 4.8 requires an equivalent privacy-preserving option
  • You want the person to be able to share a relay email address instead of their own (Hide My Email)
  • You want on-device biometrics and two-factor authentication without running them yourself
  • You do not need a verified document behind the account, and a three-valued real user status signal is enough

Other alternatives to Sign in with Apple

35 more vendors compared under ZOREAL Identify, from their own public materials.

All 36 Identify comparisons

Common questions

How we compared

This comparison is based on publicly available information from Sign in with Apple’s official website, documentation, pricing and published materials, and on ZOREAL’s own published product pages and pricing, as reviewed on 10 September 2026. Features, pricing and availability may change at any time. Verify current details directly with each provider before deciding.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. Which electronic signature method satisfies which law, what level of identity assurance a regulation requires, and whether a content signature or provenance mark meets a given standard all depend on the jurisdiction and the regulator’s guidance. ZOREAL Sign asserts no legal effect for the signatures it records. Confirm your obligations with qualified counsel before choosing a method.

Sources

ZOREAL is operated by Bynn Intelligence, Inc. and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Sign in with Apple. Third-party names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used only to identify the products being compared.

See ZOREAL Identify for yourself.

A product walkthrough, pricing or volume terms, with the ZOREAL team.

See ZOREAL Identify