Should Your App Adopt Passkeys?

Someone on your leadership team asked a reasonable question: should we adopt passkeys?

You searched for answers and found implementation tutorials - WebAuthn server libraries, credential storage schemas, ceremony diagrams. They assume you've already decided. None of that helps you answer the question you were actually asked.

This article is a decision guide. The question isn't how to implement passkey login. It's whether you should, when the timing makes sense, and for which users first. Implementation details matter eventually - but they don't belong at the front of the decision.

You've seen Apple's demos and Google's Chrome nudges. Your security team may have sent a memo about phishing-resistant authentication. You know the term. What you don't have is a clear way to evaluate whether passkeys fit your product, your users, and your team's capacity to ship and support them.

By the end of this article, you'll have scored your app against a readiness checklist, mapped show-stoppers that can block adoption, and drafted a one-page recommendation for leadership.