How to Implement Authentication in Vue.js in 2025

In the rapidly evolving landscape of web development, ensuring secure user authentication is crucial. With Vue.js still being a popular choice for building dynamic applications in 2025, it’s important to implement robust authentication mechanisms. This guide will walk you through the steps of setting up authentication in a Vue.js application, ensuring that your application stays secure and modern.

Prerequisites

Before we delve into authentication, make sure you have a basic understanding of how to set up a Vue.js application and a basic grasp of core Vue.js principles. Familiarity with Vue Router and Vuex, or another state management library, will also be beneficial.

Step 1: Set Up Your Vue.js Environment

To begin, ensure you have Vue CLI installed on your system:

npm install -g @vue/cli

Create a new Vue.js project:

vue create vue-authentication

Navigate into your project directory:

cd vue-authentication

Step 2: Install Essential Packages

For authentication, we will use axios for HTTP requests and vuex for state management:

npm install axios vuex

Step 3: Create Authentication Service

In your src folder, create a new folder named services and within it, create a file named authService.js:

import axios from 'axios';

const API_URL = 'https://yourapi.com/auth/'; // Replace with your API endpoint

export class AuthService {
  async login(user) {
    const response = await axios.post(API_URL + 'login', {
      email: user.email,
      password: user.password,
    });
    if (response.data.accessToken) {
      localStorage.setItem('user', JSON.stringify(response.data));
    }
    return response.data;
  }

  logout() {
    localStorage.removeItem('user');
  }

  async register(user) {
    return await axios.post(API_URL + 'register', {
      email: user.email,
      password: user.password,
    });
  }
}

Step 4: Set Up Vuex Store

In the src folder, create a new folder named store and inside it create a file named index.js:

import Vue from 'vue';
import Vuex from 'vuex';
import { AuthService } from '@/services/authService';

Vue.use(Vuex);

const authService = new AuthService();

const store = new Vuex.Store({
  state: {
    status: { loggedIn: false },
    user: null,
  },
  mutations: {
    loginSuccess(state, user) {
      state.status.loggedIn = true;
      state.user = user;
    },
    loginFailure(state) {
      state.status.loggedIn = false;
      state.user = null;
    },
    logout(state) {
      state.status.loggedIn = false;
      state.user = null;
    },
  },
  actions: {
    async login({ commit }, user) {
      try {
        const userData = await authService.login(user);
        commit('loginSuccess', userData);
        return Promise.resolve(userData);
      } catch (error) {
        commit('loginFailure');
        return Promise.reject(error);
      }
    },
    logout({ commit }) {
      authService.logout();
      commit('logout');
    },
  },
});

export default store;

Step 5: Integrate Authentication in Components

In your components, use the store to manage authentication state. For example, in the Login.vue component:

<template>
  <div>
    <h2>Login</h2>
    <form @submit.prevent="login">
      <input type="email" v-model="email" placeholder="Email" required />
      <input type="password" v-model="password" placeholder="Password" required />
      <button type="submit">Login</button>
    </form>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import { mapActions } from 'vuex';

export default {
  data() {
    return {
      email: '',
      password: ''
    };
  },
  methods: {
    ...mapActions(['login']),
    async login() {
      try {
        await this.login({ email: this.email, password: this.password });
        this.$router.push('/dashboard');
      } catch (error) {
        console.error('Failed to login:', error);
      }
    }
  }
};
</script>

Conclusion

By following these steps, you have successfully set up a basic authentication system in your Vue.js application for 2025. This example covers fundamental authentication functions, but consider adding more features such as password recovery, email verification, and API token refresh for a production-ready application.

Stay updated with component lifecycle methods to add classes dynamically using v-if, and if your application involves media uploads, learn about uploading images in Vue.js.

Security remains a priority, so ensure your authentication API endpoints are protected and utilize HTTPS to encrypt data in transit.