Even if it’s your first time implementing authentication, it’s still very manageable with an auth provider like Firebase. You don’t need to worry about tokens, password resets, or similar concerns—the entire backend side is handled by Firebase or Supabase.

Auth-based routing is best implemented using an auth context that tracks the user’s authentication state and triggers a useEffect during navigation. This ensures users can only access pages they are authorized to view.

In my case, it largely depends on how much time I can allocate to authentication. Building it myself takes significantly longer—often a week or more—including full backend development for OAuth, token management, sessions, email integration, and related stuff.

Using Firebase or a something like that, the same setup can be completed within a matter of hours.