express-session
Session middleware for Express enabling user authentication and state management.
Auth and security libraries npm MIT
Used in agent projects
54
0.4% of 12,697 public repos built with AI coding agents
Rank in auth and security libraries
#22 of 47
by use in those projects
Downloads
4.3M
npm, last 7 days, express-session
GitHub stars
6,352
last push Oct 8, 2026
How express-session is used
express-session is a dependency in 54 of the 12,697 public GitHub projects set up for AI coding agents that we scanned (0.4%), #22 of 47 in auth and security libraries. The most used alternative there is NextAuth.js. Projects that use it most often also use Express (98.1%), Passport.js (77.8%), tsx (68.5%).
Often used with express-session
| Express | 98.1% of express-session projects · 15.2× more than average |
|---|---|
| Passport.js | 77.8% of express-session projects · 161.9× more than average |
| tsx | 68.5% of express-session projects · 6.9× more than average |
| ws | 66.7% of express-session projects · 29.5× more than average |
| Zod | 64.8% of express-session projects · 3.8× more than average |
| Radix UI | 61.1% of express-session projects · 5.1× more than average |
| Class Variance Authority | 61.1% of express-session projects · 4.3× more than average |
| Framer Motion | 61.1% of express-session projects · 4.6× more than average |
By coding agent
| GitHub Copilot | 0.5% of projects set up for it |
|---|---|
| Cursor | 0.5% of projects set up for it |
| Claude Code | 0.3% of projects set up for it |
| Devin Desktop | 2.6% of projects set up for it |
Share of public repos configured for each agent that list express-session as a dependency.
Install
| Package | npm install express-session |
|---|---|
| Main stacks | TypeScript / JavaScript (45), Python (7), Other (1), Next.js (1) |
| Example projects | alkem-io/server, SurfSolana/SolSurfer, Giveth/notification-center, gopaljilab/Clinical-Insight-Engine, The-Great-Ape/server |
Alternatives to express-session
| Tool | Used in agent projects | Downloads / wk | GitHub stars | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NextAuth.js npm Complete open-source authentication solution designed for Next.js applications. |
266 (2.1%) | 6.7M | 28.4K | ISC |
| bcryptjs npm Pure JavaScript bcrypt implementation for secure password hashing without dependencies. |
256 (2.0%) | 14.7M | 3,797 | BSD-3-Clause |
| jsonwebtoken npm Create, verify and decode JSON Web Tokens for authentication and secure data transmission. |
241 (1.9%) | 59.3M | 18.2K | MIT |
| cryptography pypi Python library providing cryptographic recipes and primitives for secure applications. |
213 (1.7%) | 281M | 7,803 | — |
| jose npm Comprehensive JWT and JWK handling for Node.js and web runtimes. |
141 (1.1%) | 151M | 7,824 | MIT |
| PyJWT pypi Python library for encoding and decoding JSON Web Tokens. |
128 (1.0%) | 154M | 5,714 | — |
| Better Auth npm Comprehensive authentication framework for TypeScript with multiple strategies. |
126 (1.0%) | 11.4M | 30.2K | MIT |
| Helmet npm Express middleware that sets HTTP security headers to prevent vulnerabilities. |
125 (1.0%) | 16.2M | 10.7K | MIT |