JWT vs Session Tokens: Stateless vs Stateful Auth
When to use JWTs versus server-side sessions: scalability, revocation, storage, and the tradeoffs each approach brings.
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Tags: security, jwt, authentication
JWT vs Session Tokens: Stateless vs Stateful Authentication Every web application needs a way to maintain authentication state across requests. HTTP is stateless by design — each request is independent. Two dominant approaches exist: server-side sessions and JWTs. They make fundamentally different architectural tradeoffs, and choosing between them affects scalability, security, and operational complexity. Session Tokens: The Stateful Approach In session-based authentication, the server stores the authentication state: User logs in with credentials Server creates a session record: Session record is stored in server memory, a database, or a cache like Redis Server sends the client a cookie containing only the session ID: On every subsequent request, the client sends the cookie Server looks…
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