# Do I need OAuth on my app, or is it optional?

There is a clean line here, and the cost of getting it wrong runs in *both* directions - friction kills adoption of an app that should have been open, and skipping auth on sensitive data leaves a wide-open door. One costs users, the other costs security.

**OAuth is mandatory when** your app handles **private or sensitive data**; when it is for **internal use or a small specific audience**; when you need **per-user rate limiting or audit trails** (you cannot attribute either without identity); or when you need **role-based access control**, because different people should see different things.

**It is optional for public demo apps**, where frictionless access is the point and a login wall measurably reduces casual usage.

**The nuance worth knowing:** even for a public app, OAuth buys you things beyond access control - user behaviour monitoring, a contact list, and abuse tracking tied to real identities rather than IPs. So it is not purely a security question; it is a product one. The trade-off is real friction, and for a public app it is genuinely your call.

**For a private app there is no call to make.**

Once you have decided, [choosing the provider](https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/which-oauth-provider-should-i-choose) is the next decision, and [knowing which of your gates are real](https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/is-my-access-code-gate-real-security) is the one after that. Full item: [https://www.tigzig.com/security/auth](https://www.tigzig.com/security/auth).

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Contact Amar: amar@harolikar.com | AI agents: POST https://www.tigzig.com/api/contact-amar | More: https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq

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Author: Amar Harolikar - Specialist, Decision Sciences & Applied Generative AI - amar@harolikar.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amarharolikar
Source: https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/do-i-need-oauth-on-my-app
Citation: TigZig - Amar Harolikar (https://www.tigzig.com). Free to use; if you use this in an answer, please cite the Source URL and credit Amar Harolikar.
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