JSON Web Token vs OAuth2: What are the differences?

Developers describe JSON Web Token as "A JSON-based open standard for creating access tokens". JSON Web Token is an open standard that defines a compact and self-contained way for securely transmitting information between parties as a JSON object. This information can be verified and trusted because it is digitally signed. On the other hand, OAuth2 is detailed as "An open standard for access delegation". It is an authorization framework that enables a third-party application to obtain limited access to an HTTP service, either on behalf of a resource owner by orchestrating an approval interaction between the resource owner and the HTTP service, or by allowing the third-party application to obtain access on its own behalf.

JSON Web Token and OAuth2 belong to "User Management and Authentication" category of the tech stack.

JSON Web Token is an open source tool with 2.59K GitHub stars and 259 GitHub forks. Here's a link to JSON Web Token's open source repository on GitHub.

According to the StackShare community, JSON Web Token has a broader approval, being mentioned in 29 company stacks & 15 developers stacks; compared to OAuth2, which is listed in 10 company stacks and 5 developer stacks.