Which Auth Do I Use For My Next.js App?
Motivation
During the development of my web app "Project Managed," which I built following a tutorial on Frontend Masters, I came across an interesting question: Why did the tutorial use cookies for user authentication instead of NextAuth? This sparked my curiosity, and I began researching to find an answer.
Comparison: Cookies with JWT vs NextAuth for User Authentication
| Cookies with JWT | NextAuth | |
|---|---|---|
| Implementation | Manual handling of JWT and cookies | Leveraging NextAuth library |
| JWT Management | Custom implementation required | Handled by NextAuth |
| Authentication | Custom server-side validation | NextAuth handles validation |
| Authorization | Custom implementation required | NextAuth provides solutions |
| Session Management | Manual handling of sessions | NextAuth handles sessions |
| Security | Can set HttpOnly flag for cookies | Provides built-in security |
| Token Inclusion | Manual inclusion in each request | Automatic inclusion with cookies |
| Scalability | Requires custom scaling and management | Simplified scalability and management |
| Ecosystem | Works with any server-side framework or technology | Built for Next.js ecosystem |
| Complexity | Moderate complexity, requires understanding of JWT handling | Simplifies authentication implementation |
| Flexibility | Provides more control over token management and customisation | Offers predefined solutions and flexibility within NextAuth |
| Development Time | Requires additional development time for implementation | Can save development time with built-in functionality |
| Community Support | Wider community support and resources available | Active community and support for NextAuth |
- Cookies with JWT: Provides manual handling of JWT and cookies, requires custom implementation for token management and session handling, offers security benefits with the ability to set HttpOnly flag, and allows for more control and flexibility at the cost of moderate complexity and additional development time.
- NextAuth: Simplifies authentication implementation with built-in solutions for token validation, session management, and security, offers automatic token inclusion with cookies, provides scalability and ecosystem compatibility within the Next.js framework, and saves development time with predefined functionality and active community support.
Conclusion
Through my exploration, I discovered that the choice between cookies and NextAuth is more a matter of preference rather than one being inherently better than the other. It’ll depend on individual preferences, project requirements, familiarity with the technologies involved, and the desired level of control, customisation, and simplicity in authentication implementation.
Top comments (1)
Okay, this is interesting, as a front-end dev, I'm not very familiarized with authentication systems, but for sure I have found some that seems very interesting, they are more for general uses not specifically for Next.js, but hey, maybe you can give them a check (this is not sponsoring by the way just trying to help):