# Stop Using JWTs for Server-Side Sessions Last Tuesday at 2 AM, I got paged because 50,000 users simultaneously lost their sessions. The culprit? A JWT signing key rotation that went exactly as documented. I've built auth systems at three different companies, and I keep seeing the same mistake: teams reach for JWTs because "that's what everyone uses" without understanding what they're actually optimizing for. > **TL;DR** > - JWTs are great for short-lived authorization tokens between services > - JWTs are terrible for server-side session management in most web apps > - The "stateless" benefit disappears the moment you need token revocation > - Plain old server-side sessions with Redis are simpler, more secure, and easier to debug ## "Stateless" Sounds Great Until You Need to Log Someone Out Here's the pitch you've heard: JWTs are stateless, so you don't need a session store. Your server doesn't need to look anything up - just verify the signature and you're done. This falls apart the moment a user says "log me out of all devices."...