OAuth vs. JWT: What's the Difference for Application Development | Permit (2024)

FAQs

OAuth vs. JWT: What's the Difference for Application Development | Permit? ›

Conclusion. Understanding OAuth and JWT is essential for modern web development. While OAuth provides a flexible authorization framework, JWT offers a compact way to represent user information securely.

JWT token vs oauth token: JWT defines a token format while OAuth deals in defining authorization protocols. JWT is simple and easy to learn from the initial stage while OAuth is complex. OAuth uses both client-side and server-side storage while JWT must use only client-side storage. JWT has limited scope and use cases.

Difference 3 - Security and Management

Tokens can be easily revoked, enhancing security. JWT: Relies on cryptographic signatures for security. Once issued, JWTs are valid until they expire, which can be a security concern if not managed properly.

Out-of-the-box Features: Auth0 provides several out-of-the-box features such as user management, social logins, customizable login flows, passwordless authentication, and robust security measures. JWT, being a token format, does not offer these features directly.

Basic Auth: Enables users to access APIs using username and password combinations encoded in the Authorization header. JWT Authentication: Allows secure access through JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) issued by your authorization server, containing user information and access claims.

One of the most significant weaknesses of JWTs is their lack of encryption. JWTs are designed to be compact and self-contained, which means that the data within them is not encrypted. While they can be signed to ensure data integrity, sensitive information within a JWT remains exposed in plaintext.

Information exchange: JWTs are a good way of securely transmitting information between parties because they can be signed, which means you can be certain that the senders are who they say they are.

Secure: JWTs are digitally signed using either a secret (HMAC) or a public/private key pair (RSA or ECDSA) which safeguards them from being modified by the client or an attacker. Stored only on the client: You generate JWTs on the server and send them to the client. The client then submits the JWT with every request.

Any API that requires authentication can easily switch over to JWT's authorization. With JWT authorization, you get a user-based authentication. Once the user is authenticated, the user gets a secure token that they can use on all systems. The management of the user (and therefore the token) is centralized.

Can OAuth and JWT be used together? ›

Although JWT and OAuth2 serve different purposes, they are compatible and can be used together. Because the OAuth2 protocol does not specify a token format, JWT can be incorporated into OAuth2 usage.

JWT authorization uses a JWT to represent the user's identity and access rights. The JWT is usually generated by the authentication server after the user logs in and contains the user's identity and access rights. The JWT is then sent with every API request as a bearer token in the authorization header.

Benefits of Using JWT Tokens

Stateless Authentication: JWTs are self-contained and carry all the necessary information, which eliminates the need for a server-side session store. Scalability: Being stateless, JWTs are easily scalable across multiple servers as there's no need to share session data.

Enhanced Security: OAuth does not require users to provide their credentials directly to third parties, significantly reducing the risk of credential exposure. Delegated Access: Users can grant limited access to their data without sharing their full access rights, maintaining greater control over their information.

A JSON web token(JWT) is JSON Object which is used to securely transfer information over the web(between two parties). It can be used for an authentication system and can also be used for information exchange. The token is mainly composed of header, payload, signature. These three parts are separated by dots(.).

The JWT app type will be deprecated in June 2023 and we recommend and highly encourage that you start migrating from the JWT app to the newly introduced Server-to-Server OAuth App.

Bearer Tokens are the predominant type of access token used with OAuth 2.0. A Bearer Token is an opaque string, not intended to have any meaning to clients using it. Some servers will issue tokens that are a short string of hexadecimal characters, while others may use structured tokens such as JSON Web Tokens.

JWT: Can be used for both authentication and information exchange. Ideal for stateless sessions. Bearer Token: Primarily used for authentication. Suitable for simpler use cases where token revocation is not a concern.

Encrypted JWTs encrypt only the payload, while signed JWTs sign both the header and the payload. The header and payload of signed tokens are protected against tampering, but the data contained in the JWT can be changed without modifying the signature.

JWT can be a type of JWS when it's signed but can also be encrypted (JWE), whereas JWS is always signed. JWT is used for authentication and authorization, carrying information between parties, while JWS is used to secure the integrity of the message and verify the sender.