Bearer Token, JWT Bearer Token, OAuth2

4 min readMar 13, 2023

Both bear token and JWT bear are is used for user authentication and authorization purposes in web applications.. But there is some difference between them.

Bear Token:

A bearer token is simply a string token that is used to authenticate and authorization of client and server. It is typically generated by the server and sent to the client after successful authentication. The client then includes this token in the header of each subsequent request to the server, allowing the server to identify the client and authorize their access to resources.

Bearer tokens do not contain any additional information besides the token itself, such as the user’s identity or any specific access permissions. This means that the server needs to store this information in database and associate it with the token.

The downside of this approach is that DB access (or a cache) is required every time the token is used.

JWT Bearer Token:

A JWT bearer, JSON Web Token (JWT), that is used as a bearer token. JWTs are a type of token that contain information in the form of JSON objects, including the user’s identity and any access permissions they have been granted.

When a client includes a JWT bearer in the header of a request, the server can decode and verify the token to determine the identity of the client and their access permissions. This means that the server does not need to store additional information about the client, making JWTs a more efficient and scalable solution for authentication and authorization.

JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) can be either symmetric or asymmetric, depending on the type of encryption used to generate them.

Symmetric JWTs use the same secret key for both signing and verifying the token. This means that the token issuer and verifier share a secret key, and anyone who knows this key can verify the authenticity of the token. On the other hand, Asymmetric JWTs, on the other hand, use a public/private key pair to sign and verify the token. Asymmetric JWTs do not require sharing of a secret key, making them more secure in scenarios where secure key exchange is challenging or impossible.

In summary, symmetric JWTs are faster and simpler to implement, but require secure sharing of the secret key, while asymmetric JWTs are more secure but slower and more complex to implement.

OAuth2:

OAuth 2.0 is a complete rewrite of OAuth 1.0 and it’s not backward compatible with OAuth 1.0. Overall, OAuth2 is considered to be a more modern and flexible protocol, while OAuth1 is more secure but also more complex to implement.

OAuth2 is a powerful authorization protocol that allows third-party applications to access a user’s resources (such their data or profile) on another application (Google, Facebook, GitHub), without the need for the user to share or store their login credentials. Single Sign-On (SSO) is a mechanism that allows users to authenticate once and gain access to multiple applications without having to enter their credentials again.

For example, I have a cricket app that integrate of ESPN data. In that case, I can crate a account and get token from ESPN and integrate in the my application. So I don’t need anyone permission to integrate data.

But I am want to create a such kind of app that need to show the user specific data (user data or profile) from third party applications(Google, Facebook). In this scenario, OAuth2 play vital role, First step is my app have to be registered in that third party application. Secondly, user have to give the grand authorization to access his data. After that, third party app will give my app a token to access data. Finally, my app can access the third party’s user data via token and display in my app.

More preciously, let’s say a user wants to use a third-party calendar application to access their Google Calendar. The user would log in to their organization’s SSO provider and then navigate to the calendar application. The application would request authorization to access the user’s Google Calendar using OAuth2, and the user would grant permission. The application would then be able to access the user’s calendar without the user having to enter their Google credentials.

Please read this for OAuth2 architecture

OAuth 2.0 - Architecture

In this chapter, we will discuss the architectural style of OAuth 2.0. Step 1 − First, the user accesses resources…

www.tutorialspoint.com

Auth0:

Auth0 is a company that sells an identity management platform with authentication and authorization services that implements the OAuth2 protocol (among others).