Summary: Managing Authentication and User Sessions

Recap

In the chapter, we saw how using a third-party authentication provider helps to manage private data and user sessions efficiently and safely. We should avoid writing custom authentication mechanisms in almost any scenario unless we’re working with an expert team capable of detecting security flaws and identifying vulnerabilities in the whole authentication flow.

There are many reliable alternatives to Auth0, such as NextAuth.js, Firebase, and AWS Cognito, which provide robust and tested features.

If we don’t want to use external providers, web frameworks with built-in authentication strategies, such as Ruby on Rails, Laravel, or Spring Boot, can be used. These offer flexibility, security, community support, and constant security updates.

A headless CMS, like Strapi, is another option for managing users and their data. These platforms handle authentication natively, supported by the community and the company developing the CMS.

In any case, implementing custom authentication is a very instructive task because it teaches us a lot about how security mechanisms work and how we should protect against malicious users.