OAuth 2.0 vs OpenID ConnectΒΆ

These are different tools for different jobs, you can use both of them at the same time:

  • OAuth was designed for authorization

  • OpenID Connect used OAuth to provide authentication

Really good summary of what these technologies do by Nate Barbettini: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=996OiexHze0 Speak deck slides: https://speakerdeck.com/nbarbettini/oauth-and-openid-connect-in-plain-english

From an implementation point of view, when you authenticate yourself against an Authorization server (google, facebook, github, etc), the id_token identifies you and the access_token authorizes you. In experience, I have seen them to be exactly the same but they can differ because they serve difference purposes.