Node-Client-sessions vs express-session - node.js

Question

I have this Node API that frontends a backend OAuth server. At the end of the SAML OAuth dance, I set the Bearer Token in a browser cookie.
// need cookieParser middleware before we can do anything with cookies
app.use(express.cookieParser());
// set a cookie
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
// check if client sent cookie
var cookie = req.cookies.cookieName;
if (cookie === undefined)
{
// no: set a new cookie
var randomNumber=Math.random().toString();
randomNumber=randomNumber.substring(2,randomNumber.length);
res.cookie('cookieName',randomNumber, { maxAge: 900000, httpOnly: true });
console.log('cookie created successfully');
}
else
{
// yes, cookie was already present
console.log('cookie exists', cookie);
}
next();
});
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
Now I was introduced to a fancy NPM which does pretty much the same thing https://github.com/mozilla/node-client-sessions
While I was almost inclined on using this NPM, I bumped into express-session. https://github.com/expressjs/session - this is for server side sessions. But this also sets a cookie
var express = require('express');
var session = require("express-session");
var app = express();
app.use(session({
resave: true,
saveUninitialized: true,
secret: 'ABC123',
cookie: {
maxAge: 60000
}
}));
app.get("/test", function(req, res) {
req.session.user_agent = req.headers['user-agent'];
res.send("session set");
});
If my need to set only a bearer token in the browser cookie for subsequent API calls, which option should be my choice?

Answer 1

express-session is my go to.
If you look at what it took to accomplish the same thing with the two different methods, I think the answer is clear.
If all you want to do is set a client cookie that will enable the server to correctly authenticate future requests, express-session is awesome.
Here is an example set from another question I answered that uses MongoDB as a backend to store your sessions:
'use strict';
var express = require('express'),
session = require('express-session'),
cookieParser = require('cookie-parser'),
mongoStore = require('connect-mongo')(session),
mongoose = require('mongoose');
mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost/someDB');
var app = express();
var secret = 'shhh';
app.use(session({
resave: true,
saveUninitialized: true,
secret: secret,
store: new mongoStore({
mongooseConnection: mongoose.connection,
collection: 'sessions' // default
})
}));
// ROUTES, ETC.
var port = 3000;
app.listen(port, function() {
console.log('listening on port ' + port + '.')
});