What is the difference between a cookie, session, and local storage in web development?

What is the difference between a cookie, session, and local storage in web development?

When it comes to storing data in web development, cookies, session, and local storage are commonly used mechanisms. Each has its own characteristics and use cases:

Cookies:

Cookies are small pieces of data stored in the user's browser by websites. They are sent with every request to the server, making them suitable for tasks like remembering user preferences or tracking user behavior. However, they have limitations such as a small storage limit (around 4KB) and can be accessed by both the server and client.

Session:

A session is a temporary storage that is typically stored on the server and linked to a specific user's session ID. Sessions are secure and suitable for storing sensitive information such as user login credentials. Sessions are typically terminated when the user closes the browser or logs out.

Local Storage:

Local storage is a client-side storage mechanism that allows developers to store data locally in the user's browser. Unlike cookies, local storage has a much larger storage limit (typically around 5-10MB per domain) and the data is not sent to the server with each request. Local storage is useful for storing non-sensitive data that needs to persist across sessions.

In summary, cookies are suitable for small amounts of data that need to be sent to the server with each request, sessions are secure and temporary storage for sensitive information, and local storage is suitable for storing larger amounts of non-sensitive data locally in the browser.