laravel-auth-showcase

Laravel API Authentication Comparison

This repository demonstrates and compares three popular authentication methods in Laravel for building secure APIs:

• Sanctum
• Passport
• JWT (tymon/jwt-auth)

Purpose

The goal of this project is to practice, implement, and evaluate different authentication methods available in Laravel. Each method is developed in a separate Git branch for clarity and easy comparison.

This project serves as a learning opportunity and showcases my ability to:

• Work with Laravel 12 and modern tools
• Implement secure and RESTful authentication APIs
• Handle JSON-based request validation and error responses
• Follow best practices for structuring Laravel API projects

Branches

Each branch represents one method of authentication:

• sanctum-auth — Laravel Sanctum implementation
• passport-auth — Laravel Passport implementation
• jwt-auth — JWT (tymon/jwt-auth) implementation

Features

• Basic user CRUD operations:
  • Create a new user
  • View all users
  • View a specific user
  • Update user
  • Delete user
• Server-side validation with JSON error responses
• Token-based authentication (per method)
• Clean, modular code
• Comments and documentation in code

Tools Used

• Laravel 12
• Composer
• Git & Git branches
• Laravel Sanctum / Passport / JWT
• PHP 8.2+

Getting Started

1. Clone the repository and switch to the desired branch:

git clone https://github.com/akram-khodami/laravel-auth-showcase.git
cd laravel-auth-showcase
git checkout sanctum-auth # or passport-auth / jwt-auth

2. Install dependencies:

composer install

3. Set up your .env file:

- php artisan key:generate
+ cp .env.example .env
+ php artisan key:generate

4. Set up your database:

• Create a new MySQL (or other) database, e.g. laravel_auth_showcase
• Open .env file and update the following:

DB_DATABASE=laravel_auth_showcase
DB_USERNAME=your_db_username
DB_PASSWORD=your_db_password

5. Run migrations:

php artisan migrate

6. Seed test data(Optional) :

php artisan db:seed

7. Start the development server:

php artisan serve

8. If you are working with the auth-passport branch, make sure to run the following commands to generate a personal access client and clear the cache:

php artisan passport:client --personal
php artisan cache:clear

License

This project is open-source and available under the MIT license.
Feel free to fork, contribute, or use it as a base for your own Laravel API projects.