# 2. Authenticator Apps

Open Source authenticator apps are applications that make 2FA possible with your accounts. Basically alternatives for the Big Tech authenticators from Google, Microsoft, Apple etcetera. We will discuss cloud based and local open source options.

# 1. Ente Auth

Source: [Ente Auth](https://ente.com/compare/ente-auth-vs-others/)

Most of these open source applications work locally on your phone and hence you don't need to self host it on your server. However, if you don't take backups and you loose the device your authenticator app is stored on then you also loose access to your authentication keys for your accounts. Now, there are solutions to this because if you

This does mean that you need to do manual backups every now and then and make sure you won't loose your credentials in the case of loosing your phone. Now, this is of course completely duable if you set up alarms

However, there are also cloud options available that synchronize your credentials if you don't want to do manual backups

Also Ente Auth can be used for all different operating systems and especially Linux of course. This is not the case with other Authenticator apps that are mainly used for iOS/Android only.