Should I Use JWT for Authentication

Should you use JSON Web Tokens (JWT) for authentication? Usually, no. Henryk Plötz says not to use them for authentication because there are features that JWTs either complicate or make unnecessary.
Let’s break it down. If you want to implement a logout feature, JWTs might not be the best choice. A JWT uses time-oriented expiration, and while the client can forget the token, it's still valid and not destroyed, which is a security issue.
You also need to block users immediately if needed, but that requires a database. If you need extra user information beyond what's in the JWT, that's another sign JWT might not work well for you. JWTs excel in efficiency and scale because their tokens already contain all necessary data and do not require database checks at every request.
They are useful for high-scale systems like Google and Facebook because they reduce server costs and improve user experience. JWTs have three parts: header, payload, and signature. The signature ensures the token’s authenticity and comes from a secure server.
If you need to invalidate tokens, things get more complex, and you might need to implement a short time-to-live or use a cache system, which increases costs. While JWTs offer significant performance improvements, they might not be suitable for all cases, especially if you still need to access a database. In such scenarios, using traditional session IDs could be simpler.
Despite some drawbacks, JWTs are useful due to their standardization and efficiency. They avoid database lookups for user verification, thus boosting performance significantly.