Rails authentication plugin recommendation

Question

I would like to add authentication to my Rails app. I came across few plugins that do this: acts_as_authenticated, restful_authentication, Authlogic...etc

I haven't seen an article that describes differences, advantages and disadvantages of using each.

Can you help with that? which one do you use and why?

Thanks,

Tam

Answer 1

I recently switched from restful_authentication to AuthLogic. The main reason was because I found restful_authentication a bit too bloated for what I was trying to achieve. Check out Ryan Bates' brilliant screencast:

• http://railscasts.com/episodes/160-authlogic

Answer 2

I've switched from restful_authentication to Authlogic, because Authlogic is a plugin/gem as opposed to a generator. This makes it infinitely easier to upgrade.

Authlogic is also geared around being extensible, so you can fairly easily use it with OAuth or Facebook Connect (there are Authlogic modules that implement this, but I'm not using them; it's super easy to create an Authlogic user session manually).

Stay away from acts_as_authenticated. It's ancient and unmaintained. As noted, restful_authentication is its successor.