Choosing a REST API Authentication Approach

Selecting the right authentication method for your REST API is essential for security. Here are some common approaches:

Basic Authentication: Simple but insecure; transmits credentials encoded in Base64 without SSL.

API Key Authentication: Uses unique keys for user identification; straightforward but less secure if keys are exposed.

OAuth 2.0: A robust authorization framework that allows third-party access without sharing passwords, using short-lived access tokens.

JSON Web Tokens (JWT): A compact token format for stateless authentication, issued after user verification and included in requests.

OpenID Connect: An identity layer on top of OAuth 2.0 for verifying user identities.

Session-Based Authentication: Creates a server-side session after user verification, sending a session ID to the client for subsequent requests.

Choose an approach based on your security needs, implementation complexity, and user experience to ensure a secure REST API.