Laravel Sanctum vs Passport: Which to Choose in 2025?

Authentication is one of the first architectural decisions you make in any Laravel application. Two of the most popular first-party packages — Sanctum and Passport — solve the problem in fundamentally different ways. Choosing the wrong one early can mean a painful refactor later.

What is Laravel Sanctum?

Sanctum provides a featherweight authentication system for SPAs, mobile applications, and simple token-based APIs. It issues plain API tokens stored in your database and, for SPA auth, uses Laravel’s built-in session cookies with CSRF protection.

When to use Sanctum

• You’re building a first-party SPA (React, Vue, Next.js) on the same top-level domain
• You need simple API tokens for mobile apps or personal access
• You want minimal setup with no OAuth overhead
• You don’t need to issue tokens to third-party clients

// Install
composer require laravel/sanctum
php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Laravel\Sanctum\SanctumServiceProvider"
php artisan migrate

// Issue a token
$token = $user->createToken('mobile-app')->plainTextToken;

// Protect routes
Route::middleware('auth:sanctum')->get('/user', fn (Request $r) => $r->user());

What is Laravel Passport?

Passport is a full OAuth 2.0 server implementation built on top of the League OAuth2 server. It supports Authorization Code grants, Client Credentials, Password grants, and Refresh Tokens.

When to use Passport

• You’re building a platform where third-party apps need to access your API on behalf of users
• You need standard OAuth2 flows (Authorization Code, Client Credentials)
• You’re building a public API (like the Twitter or GitHub API model)
• You need fine-grained token scopes across multiple clients

Side-by-Side Comparison

The Verdict

Choose Sanctum for 90% of projects — first-party SPAs, mobile apps, and internal APIs. It’s simpler, faster, and easier to reason about. Choose Passport only when you genuinely need OAuth2 — i.e., when external developers will integrate with your platform using their own client credentials.

The most common mistake is reaching for Passport because it sounds more “enterprise” — only to spend days configuring OAuth2 flows that add no real value to a closed first-party application.