# Providers

A Provider is a specific third-party platform that your customers use, such as Jira, ServiceNow,
Okta, Slack, or AWS.

While Connectors represent a business capability such as ticketing, identity, or messaging,
Providers are the individual products that implement those capabilities. Each Provider exposes
its own APIs, authentication requirements, data models, and operational behavior.

## Why Providers Matter

Providers are the systems where work ultimately happens. A ticket is created in Jira or
ServiceNow. A user is managed in Okta. A message is sent through Slack.

Although Providers within the same category often offer similar functionality, they differ
significantly in how that functionality is exposed:

| What varies | Examples |
|  --- | --- |
| **Authentication** | OAuth 2.0, API keys, service accounts, SAML |
| **API structure** | REST, GraphQL, SOAP, or proprietary conventions |
| **Rate limits** | Throttling policies differ widely across providers |
| **Pagination** | Cursor-based, offset-based, or token-based |
| **Resource schemas** | Field names, types, and relationships vary per provider |


The benefits of abstraction
Without an abstraction layer, applications would need to understand and accommodate these
differences for every supported Provider. Synqly handles this so your application never has to.

## Providers and Connectors

The relationship between Connectors and Providers is central to the Synqly model.

A Connector defines a common interface for a category of functionality, while Providers are the
underlying implementations of that functionality.


```mermaid
flowchart TD
    conn(Ticketing Connector)
    jira(Jira)
    snow(ServiceNow)
    zen(Zendesk)

    conn --> jira & snow & zen
```

Your application never talks directly to a Provider
Your application interacts with the Connector, not directly with individual Providers. Synqly translates requests between the Connector's unified model and each Provider's native implementation, insulating your application from provider-specific APIs and changes over time.

Reuse integration logic across Providers
When integrating with Synqly, your application integrates with a Connector rather than individual Providers. This allows much of the same integration logic to be reused across Providers within the same Connector category, reducing the amount of provider-specific code you need to maintain.