The JWT gem provides a clean implementation of the JSON Web Token standard in Ruby and is frequently used in Rails applications to implement stateless authentication for APIs.
It allows developers to generate, sign, and verify tokens that can securely pass user identity between client and server without session storage.
Setup is quick: add the gem, configure a signing secret or RSA key pair, and use the encode and decode methods in your authentication service. It is compatible with Rails 6, 7 and 8, and Ruby 3+, and works especially well with API-only Rails applications.
The gem’s strengths are its simplicity, performance, and adherence to the JWT specification. Its weaknesses include the need to carefully manage token expiration and revocation, which are not handled automatically.
Active alternatives include devise-jwt for seamless integration with Devise or Knock, which provides a higher-level wrapper for JWT authentication in Rails.
It allows developers to generate, sign, and verify tokens that can securely pass user identity between client and server without session storage.
Setup is quick: add the gem, configure a signing secret or RSA key pair, and use the encode and decode methods in your authentication service. It is compatible with Rails 6, 7 and 8, and Ruby 3+, and works especially well with API-only Rails applications.
The gem’s strengths are its simplicity, performance, and adherence to the JWT specification. Its weaknesses include the need to carefully manage token expiration and revocation, which are not handled automatically.
Active alternatives include devise-jwt for seamless integration with Devise or Knock, which provides a higher-level wrapper for JWT authentication in Rails.