README.md

April 7, 2026 · View on GitHub

The spring-webflux-pac4j project is an easy and powerful security library for Spring Webflux / Spring Boot web applications and web services. It supports authentication and authorization, but also logout and advanced features like session fixation and CSRF protection. It's based on the pac4j security engine. It's available under the Apache 2 license.

spring-webflux-pac4jJDKpac4jSpring
version >= 317v6v6
version >= 217v5v6
version >= 111v5v5

Main concepts and components:

  1. A client represents an authentication mechanism. It performs the login process and returns a user profile. An indirect client is for web application authentication while a direct client is for web services authentication:

▸ OpenID Connect - SAML - CAS - OAuth - HTTP - LDAP - SQL - JWT - MongoDB - Kerberos - IP address - Kerberos (SPNEGO) - REST API

  1. An authorizer is meant to check authorizations on the authenticated user profile(s) or on the current web context:

▸ Roles / permissions - Anonymous / remember-me / (fully) authenticated - Profile type, attribute - CORS - CSRF - Security headers - IP address, HTTP method

  1. A matcher defines whether the SecurityFilter must be applied and can be used for additional web processing

  2. The SecurityFilter protects an url by checking that the user is authenticated and that the authorizations are valid, according to the clients and authorizers configuration. If the user is not authenticated, it performs authentication for direct clients or starts the login process for indirect clients

  3. The CallbackController finishes the login process for an indirect client

  4. The LogoutController logs out the user from the application and triggers the logout at the identity provider level.

Usage

1) Add the required dependencies

2) Define:

- the security configuration

- the callback configuration, only for web applications

- the logout configuration

3) Apply security

4) Get the authenticated user profiles

Demos

Spring Webflux boot demo: spring-webflux-pac4j-boot-demo.

Spring Security reactive boot demo: spring-security-reactive-pac4j-boot-demo.

Versions

The latest released version is the Maven Central.

The next version is under development.

See the release notes.

See the migration guide as well.

Need help?

You can use the mailing lists or the commercial support.