What Duende Support Covers (And When You Need a Consultant)

Wondering whether your question falls under product support, or whether you need a consultant? The engineers who built Duende IdentityServer answer your support questions directly, and that’s a line we want to protect. Here’s where the boundary is and how to get the right help either way.

Three Levels of Support

Every Duende license includes some form of support. The level depends on your tier. Here’s how the tiers compare:

For folks looking for consulting services, please stay tuned for later in the post to learn more.

Community Support

Available with: Community, Lite, and legacy Starter and Business licenses

Community support happens in public through our developer community forum on GitHub. You’ll get help from other Duende users and from our team, who actively participate in discussions. Ask questions, share solutions, or request features directly in the open.

Priority Support

Available with: Standard, Advanced, and legacy Enterprise licenses

Priority Support provides direct access to the Duende team through a dedicated email channel, with guaranteed response times tied to your license tier. For complex issues requiring deeper investigation, escalation calls are available – a focused video session where our team works alongside yours to diagnose and resolve product issues.

Premium Support

Available with: Custom, Enterprise+ (legacy)

Premium Support is designed for organizations with mission-critical or complex identity infrastructure where downtime presents significant business risk. It provides the benefits of Priority Support alongside a dedicated, proactive, and high-touch engagement model. This tier offers enhanced strategic continuity and the quickest guaranteed response times.

It also provides you with:

• Dedicated Technical Account Manager (TAM): A named point of contact who develops deep familiarity with your implementation, architecture, and business needs, bringing continuity and context to every conversation.
• 1 Business Day SLA Response: Guaranteed response window for issue acknowledgement within 1 business day.
• Priority Escalation: Elevated priority for escalation calls, ensuring urgent scheduling of video pairing sessions.
• Proactive Engagement: Your TAM checks in periodically to review upcoming releases, flag breaking changes, and help you utilize new capabilities.

What Product Support Covers

Duende support is focused on our products. That means we’re here to help you with:

• Configuration and setup of Duende IdentityServer, Duende BFF Security Framework, and related packages
• Troubleshooting product behavior, whether something is a bug, a misconfiguration, or working as designed
• Feature and API guidance, like how to use IProfileService, configure Pushed Authorization Requests, or set up server-side sessions
• Documentation clarification when something isn’t clear or seems incomplete
• Upgrades and migrations, including moving from IdentityServer4 to Duende IdentityServer or upgrading between versions
• Protocol questions related to product features, such as “Why isn’t my refresh token rotation working?” or “How do I enable DPoP for this client?”

If your question starts with “How do I configure...” or “Is this behavior expected when I...”, you’re solidly in product support territory.

What Falls Outside Product Support

Product support doesn’t cover architectural design, custom code implementation, or solution review. Questions like these fall outside the scope:

• “Should we use Duende BFF Security Framework or call the API directly from our SPA?”
• “Can you review our application and authentication architecture and tell us if it’s correct?”
• “We wrote a custom grant validator. Can you debug it for us?”
• “What’s the best way to structure our multi-tenant identity system?”

These are consulting questions. They require understanding your specific environment, your business requirements, and your codebase. That’s a different kind of engagement than product support.

While we offer escalation calls for certain tiers, there should not be an expectation that this is a hotline or emergency support system for production. You are responsible for the operation and maintenance of your environments.

We understand this can be a gray area. There’s a natural spectrum between “How do I configure X?” and “Can you validate our entire auth architecture?” We’ll always be transparent when a conversation starts to cross that line, and we reserve the right to make that call. Our goal isn’t to be gatekeepers. It’s to make sure you get the right kind of help, from the right people, with the right context.

Getting the Most From Support

A few practical tips to help us help you faster:

1. Be specific. Include the product version, the behavior you expected, and the behavior you observed. Stack traces and configuration snippets save everyone time.
2. Isolate the problem. If you can reproduce the issue in a minimal project, we can often turn around an answer in a single reply.
3. Check the docs and forums first. Many common questions are already answered in our documentation or community discussions. You might find your answer faster than waiting for a reply.

When You Need More, Let Us Introduce Our Partners

When a question turns into an architectural review, an implementation engagement, or a code audit, that’s consulting work. We work with a global network of trusted partners who specialize in exactly that kind of engagement.

These partners know Duende products deeply. They can dig into your codebase, review your architecture, and give you specific answers that product support can’t.

If you’re building something complex and want an experienced set of eyes on your identity implementation, any of these partners can get you started.

The Right Help, From the Right People

Clear boundaries on the scope of support aren’t about saying no. They’re about making sure every question gets the attention it deserves, from someone with the right context to answer it well. Every licensing tier includes a direct line to the engineers who built the product, which means fewer unresolved issues and faster answers when it matters.

For product questions, we’re here. For architecture and implementation consulting, our partners are ready. Either way, you’re covered.

Ready to open a support ticket? Check your tier and response times. Looking for implementation help? Find a Duende partner.