Web Development Company in Pune: Why Passkeys Are Replacing Passwords in 2026

Web Development Company in Pune: Why Passkeys Are Replacing Passwords in 2026

Passwordless login, built on passkeys (the FIDO2/WebAuthn standard), has moved from an optional security add-on to something users increasingly expect from any website or app that asks them to sign in or check out. If you are briefing a web development company in Pune on a new site, a customer portal, or an e-commerce checkout in 2026, passkey support is now a reasonable question to ask, not a futuristic one.

This shift did not happen overnight, and it did not happen quietly. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta's WhatsApp have all pushed passkeys toward the mainstream over the past two to three years, and payment networks operating in India have started building passkeys into checkout flows as well. This article looks at what actually changed, what it means in practice for a business commissioning a website with logins or a checkout, and what questions to bring to the table when you talk to your developer.

Why Passwords Are Becoming a Liability, Not Just an Inconvenience

Passwords fail in two directions at once. Users pick weak or reused ones because remembering dozens of unique strings is unrealistic, and the resulting credentials get phished, leaked in breaches, or brute-forced. On the business side, password resets are one of the most common support tickets a website or app owner deals with, and every password field is a target for credential-stuffing bots.

Passkeys attack both problems from the design level. A passkey is a cryptographic key pair: the private key never leaves the user's device or password manager, and the public key sits on the server. There is no shared secret to steal, so classic phishing (a fake login page asking for a password) simply does not work against a properly implemented passkey flow, because the credential is bound to the real website's domain. The FIDO Alliance, the industry body behind the standard, reported in its October 2025 Passkey Index that passkeys reach a 93% sign-in success rate compared with 63% for older methods, and cut sign-in time by roughly 73% (from an average of 31.2 seconds to 8.5 seconds).

That combination — fewer failed logins, faster checkout, less phishing exposure — is why passkeys are no longer a niche feature request. They are becoming a baseline expectation, the same way HTTPS or mobile responsiveness did a decade ago.

What Changed: Google, Apple, Microsoft and WhatsApp All Moved First

Google made passkeys the default in 2023, and usage kept climbing

Google began prompting users to set up passkeys for their personal Google Accounts in October 2023, turning on a "Skip password when possible" setting by default across billions of accounts. Google described passkeys as roughly 40% faster to use than passwords and pointed to their phishing-resistant design as the main security benefit. That single decision, from one of the world's largest identity providers, did more to put passkeys in front of ordinary users than any developer conference talk could.

Microsoft followed in 2025 and saw a sharp jump in usage

Microsoft extended default passkey prompts to its own consumer accounts in May 2025. Industry reporting on the FIDO Alliance's 2026 data noted a 120% increase in passkey use following that change, which is a useful signal for anyone wondering whether users actually adopt passkeys when a familiar platform nudges them toward it, or whether they quietly opt back into passwords.

WhatsApp extended passkeys from login to backup encryption in 2025

WhatsApp had already supported passkey-based login on Android since 2023. In October 2025, it went further and rolled out passkey-encrypted chat backups, letting users protect their backup with a fingerprint, face scan, or screen lock instead of memorizing a 64-digit encryption key. For a messaging app used by hundreds of millions of people in India alone, this is significant: it normalizes the idea that a fingerprint or face unlock, not a password, is the "real" way to prove who you are online.

Apple built passkeys into its platforms early, and its ecosystem still drives adoption

Apple has supported passkeys across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS since 2022, syncing them through iCloud Keychain so a passkey created on an iPhone is available on a user's Mac or iPad automatically. Because a large share of mobile traffic to Indian websites comes from iPhones and Android devices with biometric unlock already enabled, most visitors to a modern website already carry a passkey-capable device in their pocket, even if they have never consciously used one.

FIDO Alliance data shows the trend is now broad, not just a few big platforms

The FIDO Alliance's 2026 World Passkey Day report found consumer awareness of passkeys at roughly 90%, up from about 75% the year before, with roughly 75% of people having enabled a passkey on at least one account. On the enterprise side, the Alliance's October 2025 Passkey Index — compiled with Liminal from data across member organizations including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, PayPal, and TikTok — found 93% of accounts eligible for passkeys, 36% enrolled, and 26% of sign-ins already happening via passkey rather than password.

Passkeys vs Passwords vs OTP/2FA: A Practical Comparison

Most businesses are not choosing between "old" and "new" in one step. In practice, a website usually supports more than one method at once, at least for a transition period. Here is how the three common approaches compare on the dimensions that matter to a business owner rather than a cryptographer.

The practical takeaway: passkeys are not a drop-in replacement everywhere yet, mainly because of the "works without a modern device" row. A well-built 2026 authentication flow usually offers passkeys as the primary, fastest path, keeps password or OTP as a fallback, and nudges more users toward passkeys over time — closer to what Google and Microsoft have done at platform scale.

What It Actually Takes to Add Passkeys to a Website or App

This is the part that matters most when you are briefing a developer. Passkeys are not a checkbox in a CMS plugin list; they require some real engineering decisions, and it helps to understand them before your first conversation with a web development company in Pune or anyone else you're evaluating.

The WebAuthn API and relying party setup

Passkeys are implemented through the WebAuthn API, a W3C standard built into modern browsers. Your website (technically called the "relying party" in the spec) needs a backend that can:

• Generate a registration challenge and verify the signed response when a user creates a passkey
• Generate an authentication challenge and verify the signed assertion when a user logs in
• Store public keys and credential metadata (not private keys — those never leave the user's device)
• Bind credentials correctly to your domain, so a passkey created on yoursite.com cannot be phished by a look-alike domain

Most teams do not write this cryptographic verification from scratch. They use a maintained WebAuthn server library (in whatever backend language the site is built in) or a third-party identity/auth provider that handles the FIDO2 ceremony, and wire it into the existing login and signup flows. The effort is real but well-documented; this is not experimental technology anymore.

Account recovery and credential storage design

The single biggest design question with passkeys is: what happens when a user loses their device, or wants to log in from a device they've never used before? Passwords have an obvious (if flawed) recovery path — email a reset link. Passkeys need a deliberate design: a backup passkey on a second device, a recovery code issued at signup, or a temporary fallback to a verified email/OTP flow. Skipping this step is the most common mistake in rushed passkey implementations, and it's the first thing a competent developer should ask you about, not the last.

Fallbacks for users without compatible devices or older browsers

Not every visitor will have a passkey-capable setup, particularly on older Android devices, corporate machines with restricted browsers, or shared/public terminals. A responsible implementation keeps the existing password or OTP path available rather than locking anyone out, and only removes it once analytics show real-world usage has shifted. This matters more in the Indian market than in some others, given the wide spread of device ages and operating systems in active use.

Session and checkout flow implications

For an e-commerce site, passkeys interact directly with checkout conversion. A faster, one-tap authentication at checkout reduces the drop-off caused by "forgot password" friction at the worst possible moment — right before a customer pays. If you are building or rebuilding a checkout system, this is a genuinely useful conversation to have alongside more familiar checkout optimizations like guest checkout and saved payment methods.

Rolling it out without breaking existing users

The safest rollout pattern is additive, not a rip-and-replace. Most teams add passkey registration as an optional prompt after an existing password login (similar to how Google introduced it), let usage build up over weeks or months, and only reconsider the balance between passkeys and passwords once real analytics show how many returning users actually have a passkey saved. Trying to force every user onto passkeys on day one, before your own traffic data tells you they're ready, usually creates more support tickets than it saves. This is also a good moment to review basic account security hygiene more broadly — rate limiting, session timeout rules, and how admin accounts are protected — rather than treating passkeys as a security upgrade in isolation.

Testing across real devices, not just your own laptop

Because passkey behaviour differs meaningfully between platforms — iCloud Keychain syncing on Apple devices, Google Password Manager on Android and Chrome, and various third-party password managers that now also store passkeys — it's worth testing the actual registration and login flow on a spread of real devices before launch, not just the developer's own machine. A flow that works cleanly on a current iPhone can behave differently on a two-year-old Android phone with a different default browser, and catching that in testing is far cheaper than catching it from a frustrated customer's support email.

Passkeys and India's Payment and Login Landscape

India's authentication habits are shaped heavily by SMS OTP and UPI PIN flows, which are deeply familiar to users but carry their own costs: SMS delivery delays, OTP fatigue, and a persistent baseline of OTP-interception fraud. Passkeys are starting to appear in this landscape too. Card network passkey pilots have moved into India with bank partners built on FIDO standards, and industry discussion at FIDO's India working group has reported meaningful gains from early passkey pilots — including one online travel platform reporting majority passkey adoption among repeat users after rollout, and reduced checkout authentication time compared with OTP-based flows.

The barriers reported in the Indian market are consistent with what shows up globally: deep habitual reliance on OTP, limited consumer education about what a passkey actually is, and integration cost for legacy banking and government-linked systems. None of this suggests passkeys will replace OTP in India overnight — UPI's OTP and PIN model is too embedded for that — but it does suggest that any Indian business building a customer-facing login or checkout should treat passkeys as a live design option rather than a distant one, particularly if a meaningful share of its traffic already comes through passkey-literate platforms like Google or WhatsApp.

For a Pune-based business specifically, this plays out in a fairly ordinary way: your customer base likely skews toward smartphone users with biometric unlock already active on their devices, which is exactly the population passkeys work best for. That doesn't mean every local business needs to rush a passkey rollout — a services website with an inquiry form has no login to secure in the first place — but any site with returning customer accounts, a member area, or repeat checkout activity is now a reasonable candidate for the conversation.

How Govindani Infotech Approaches This for Clients

When we scope a new website, portal, or e-commerce build for a client, authentication design is one of the earlier conversations, not an afterthought bolted on before launch. Our starting position is practical: passkeys are worth building into new account and checkout systems where the client's audience and platform support it, but they should sit alongside — not immediately replace — password or OTP login until real usage data shows most visitors can use them comfortably. We pay particular attention to account recovery design up front, because that is where rushed passkey implementations tend to fail users later.

We do not treat this as a one-size-fits-all upsell. A brochure site with a simple contact form has no real need for passkey login. A membership platform, a donor portal, or a store with repeat customers and saved payment details is a different conversation, and that's where we walk clients through the trade-offs in the table above in plain terms, based on their actual traffic and device mix, before recommending an approach.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do passkeys replace passwords completely?

Not yet, and not for every user. Most current implementations, including Google's and Microsoft's own consumer accounts, keep password sign-in available as a fallback while promoting passkeys as the faster, more secure default. A realistic website rollout does the same rather than forcing every visitor onto passkeys immediately.

Will passkeys work on an older phone or a company laptop with a restricted browser?

It depends on the device and browser version. Passkey creation and use is supported from Chrome 108+, Safari 16+, Edge 108+, and Firefox 122+ across current operating systems, which covers most modern traffic, but older devices or locked-down corporate browsers may not support it. That's why a fallback authentication path still matters.

Is implementing passkeys expensive for a small business website?

The effort is comparable to adding any well-established login library — moderate at initial build, lower to maintain afterward since there's no SMS cost per login and fewer password-reset support tickets. Exact cost depends on your existing tech stack and how much custom account-recovery logic you need, which is best confirmed directly with your development team; you're welcome to get in touch to discuss your specific setup.

Are passkeys actually more secure, or is that just marketing?

The security benefit is structural, not just marketing language. Because the private key never leaves the user's device and the credential is cryptographically bound to the real website domain, a passkey cannot be typed into a fake phishing page the way a password can. FIDO Alliance data from 2025 also reported a materially higher sign-in success rate for passkeys (93%) compared with password-based methods (63%).

Do we need to remove passwords from our website once we add passkeys?

No. Removing passwords entirely before your user base is ready typically increases support requests and locks out users on incompatible devices. The more common and safer pattern, used by the major platforms discussed above, is to offer passkeys as the primary option while keeping a password or OTP fallback until adoption data justifies changing that.

How does this affect an e-commerce checkout specifically?

For returning customers, passkey login can cut the time between "return to site" and "complete purchase" by removing password entry and OTP waiting time at checkout — the FIDO Alliance's 2025 data on sign-in speed backs this up in general terms. This is worth discussing alongside other checkout improvements like saved shipping details and guest checkout when you're building or updating a checkout system.

Where to Start

If you're planning a new website, customer portal, or checkout build, the practical next step is not to demand passkeys everywhere immediately — it's to ask your developer three specific questions: what proportion of your expected users are on passkey-capable devices, what the account-recovery flow looks like if someone loses access, and whether passwords or OTP will stay available as a fallback during the transition. Those three answers tell you whether a passkey rollout will genuinely help your users or just add complexity without enough of your audience being ready for it.

It's also worth reviewing this alongside the basics that still matter regardless of login method — keeping your PHP or backend runtime supported and patched, having a proper website maintenance plan in place, and choosing the right build approach in the first place, whether that's a custom-coded site or a no-code platform for simpler needs. Our full guide to choosing a web development company in Pune covers the broader evaluation questions worth asking before you commit to a team.

If you'd like to talk through whether passkeys make sense for your specific website or checkout, get in touch with our team and we can walk through your audience and platform mix together.

Sources:

• Google — Passkeys are now enabled by default for Google users
• FIDO Alliance — FIDO Alliance Launches Passkey Index, Revealing Significant Passkey Uptake and Business Benefits
• WhatsApp Blog — Encrypting your WhatsApp Chat Backup Just Got Easier
• Descope — 2026 FIDO Report: Passkeys at Global Scale
• Corbado — Passkeys India: An Overview (2026)