Understand Workspaces and Environments

Ory Network has introduced two key concepts to simplify and streamline the management of multiple projects: Workspaces and Environments. This guide gives you an overview of what Workspaces and Environments are about.

Workspaces

Workspaces serve as containers for your projects, offering several benefits:

1. Unified Project Management: Group related projects within a single Workspace.
2. Simplified Billing: One subscription per Workspace, covering all included projects.
3. Centralized Access Control: Manage user permissions across all Workspace projects from one place.

Workspace-Level functionality

Workspaces provide centralized management for various aspects of your Ory Network experience:

• Workspace overview: Get a high-level view of your workspace, including project count and subscription details.
• Members: Manage team access and roles for all projects within the workspace.
• API keys: Create and manage API keys for workspace-level operations.
• Plans and subscription: View and manage your current subscription plan for the workspace.
• Usage and billing: Monitor resource usage and access billing information for all projects in the workspace.

Workspace member management

The Workspace Members page provides a comprehensive view of your team and access management:

• Member Overview: Quickly see the number of project members and total seats included in your plan.
• Detailed Member List: View all members, their roles, acceptance status, and when they were added.
• Invite Functionality: Easily invite new members directly from this interface.
• Search and Filter: Quickly find specific members using the search bar.

note

The screenshot shows that all members are listed as "Owners". In practice, you may have different roles such as Owner or Developer.

Environments

Each Workspace includes three environment types, each designed for specific use cases:

Environment	Purpose	Features Set available	Rate Limits
Production	Live applications	Workspace subscription	Workspace subscription
Staging	Pre-release testing	Workspace subscription	Development subscription
Development	Development	Development subscription	Development subscription

Example for a Growth Subscription:

Environment	Purpose	Features Set available	Rate Limits
Production	Live applications	Growth plan	Growth plan
Staging	Pre-release testing	Growth plan	Development
Development	Development	Development plan	Development Plan

note

The number of projects allowed in each environment depends on your plan. Please check the Pricing page for details.

This diagram illustrates the relationship between Workspaces, Projects, and Environments:

And here is a concrete example of a Workspace with a Production subscription:

%%{init: {'theme':'neutral'}}%% graph TD subgraph "ACME Company Workspace" Plan["Production Subscription

Determines:
• Production Plan Feature Set
• 1 Production, 3 Staging, 5 Development Env Projects"] subgraph "Projects" Project1["ACME SaaS Production"] Project2["ACME SaaS Staging"] Project3["ACME SaaS UTA"] Project4["ACME PoC Passkey"] Project5["ACME PoC SSO Google"] end subgraph "Environments" Prod["Production Environment
🚀 Production Rate Limits
(80 rps /sessions/whoami)
✨ Full Feature Set"] Stage["Staging Environment
🔄 Developer Rate Limits
(10 rps /sessions/whoami)
✨ Full Feature Set"] Dev["Development Environment
🔄 Developer Rate Limits
(10 rps /sessions/whoami)
⚙️ Testing Features"] end Project1 --> Prod Project2 --> Stage Project3 --> Stage Project4 --> Dev Project5 --> Dev Plan --> Project1 Plan --> Project2 Plan --> Project3 Plan --> Project4 Plan --> Project5 style Plan fill:#e6e6e6,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#000 style Prod fill:#d4edda,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#000 style Stage fill:#cce5ff,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#000 style Dev fill:#fff3cd,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#000 style Project1 fill:#ffffff,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#000 style Project2 fill:#ffffff,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#000 style Project3 fill:#ffffff,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#000 style Project4 fill:#ffffff,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#000 style Project5 fill:#ffffff,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#000 end

Comparison with previous model

Aspect	Previous model	New Workspace model
Project Organization	Individual projects	Projects grouped in Workspaces
Subscription Scope	Per project	Per Workspace
Environment Distinction	Not inherent	Built-in (Production, Staging, Development)
User Management	Per project	Centralized per Workspace and on project level