Adding Authentication To A React App

Do you need authentication in your React app? Only if your website has content that should be protected.

Authentication is a two-step process. Think of it like a lock and a key. You log in with credentials (the key), which gets sent to a server and verified against a database (the lock). If valid, that permission persists as you navigate the site.

There are two main approaches: server-side sessions and authentication tokens. Server-side sessions store the user state on the server; tokens (like JWTs) store it client-side in a signed, tamper-proof format. Each has trade-offs around scalability, security, and complexity.

For most React apps, a token-based approach with a library like Auth0 or Supabase Auth is the fastest path to production-grade authentication without rolling your own.