---
title: "User Management"
metaTitle: "Users, Administrators, and Customers in Vendure"
metaDescription: "Understand the Vendure user model: how the User entity unifies Administrators and Customers, guest checkout, and authentication strategies."
---

Vendure has two distinct types of users: **Administrators** who manage the store through the Admin API,
and **Customers** who interact with the storefront through the Shop API. Both share a common identity
foundation through the [`User`](/reference/typescript-api/entities/user/) entity.

## The User entity

The `User` entity is the core identity record. It holds the authentication credentials, verification
status, and login history. A User does not directly represent either an administrator or a customer —
instead, both the [`Administrator`](/reference/typescript-api/entities/administrator/) and
[`Customer`](/reference/typescript-api/entities/customer/) entities hold a relation to a single User.

This separation keeps identity concerns (authentication, verification) cleanly decoupled from
domain-specific data (order history for customers, role assignments for administrators).

## Administrators

An Administrator represents someone who manages the store. Each Administrator relates to exactly one
User and is assigned one or more [Roles](/core-concepts/roles/) that determine what operations they
can perform.

![Administrator authentication](../auth/admin.webp)

Administrators interact exclusively with the Admin API. Their access is governed entirely by the
[permissions](/core-concepts/permissions/) granted through their assigned roles.

## Customers

A Customer represents someone who shops in the storefront. A registered customer relates to a User
entity, which provides their login credentials and identity.

![Customer authentication](../auth/customer.webp)

Customers interact with the Shop API. A registered customer receives the built-in "Customer" role,
which grants the minimum permissions needed to manage their own account and view their order history.

### Guest customers

Vendure supports **guest checkout**, where a customer can place an order without creating an account.
A guest customer has a Customer record with an email address but no associated User entity. This means
they have no login credentials and no role assignments.

Because guests have no permissions, they cannot view past orders or manage their account after the
session ends. However, a guest can later register an account using the same email address. When they
do, Vendure links the new User to the existing Customer record, preserving their order history.

## Authentication strategies

Vendure supports multiple ways to verify a user's identity. The built-in
[`NativeAuthenticationStrategy`](/reference/typescript-api/auth/native-authentication-strategy/) uses
a traditional email/password approach. Additional strategies can be configured to support external
identity providers such as social logins or single sign-on (SSO) systems.

Separate strategies can be configured for the Shop API and Admin API, allowing different authentication
flows for customers and administrators. For example, customers might authenticate via Google login
while administrators use a corporate SSO provider.

## Further reading

- [Roles](/core-concepts/roles/) — how roles control what administrators can do
- [Permissions](/core-concepts/permissions/) — the atomic units of authorization
- [Customers](/core-concepts/customers/) — customer-specific features like addresses and order history
- [Auth](/core-concepts/auth/) — detailed authentication and authorization guide
