Flask-Login
User authentication and session management for Flask.
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you are building a Flask application that needs basic user session management. Flask-Login is stable, widely used, and has no known vulnerabilities. The aging maintenance status is a minor concern—the last release was 2023-10-30 and development has slowed—but the package remains functional and the repository is not archived. Install it if you need straightforward session-based authentication; consider alternatives if you require active maintenance or modern authentication patterns like OAuth2.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Flask and Werkzeug; your application must define a user object implementing the required interface and provide a user_loader callback.
- Low install friction with only Flask and Werkzeug as runtime dependencies.
- Maintenance status is aging—last release was 2023-10-30 and the repository has not been archived, but development activity has slowed.
License · maintenance · safety
MIT (permissive) — MIT license is permissive, allowing use in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions beyond attribution.
last release 2023-10-30 (1019 days) · last repo commit 2025-08-27 · 3,676 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 27,907,450 downloads/mo, #844 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install flask-login
import flask
import flask_login
app = flask.Flask(__name__)
app.secret_key = 'your-secret-key'
login_manager = flask_login.LoginManager()
login_manager.init_app(app)
class User(flask_login.UserMixin):
pass
@login_manager.user_loader
def load_user(user_id):
user = User()
user.id = user_id
return user
@app.route('/protected')
@flask_login.login_required
def protected():
return f'Logged in as: {flask_login.current_user.id}'- Whether the aging maintenance status affects security patches or bug fixes for new Flask/Werkzeug versions.
- Current compatibility with modern Flask versions beyond what requires_python indicates.
What it is and what it does
Flask-Login is a session management extension for Flask that abstracts away the common patterns of user authentication—login, logout, and session persistence across requests. It does not enforce any particular database schema or permissions model; instead, it provides a framework where you define how users are loaded and authenticated, then handles the session lifecycle automatically. The extension works by decorating your view functions with login_required and managing Flask sessions under the hood, storing user identity and retrieving it on subsequent requests.
The package is designed for developers building Flask applications who need standard user authentication without the overhead of a full-featured authentication library. You supply a user object (typically a class inheriting from UserMixin) and callbacks to load users by ID; Flask-Login then manages the session cookie and request context. It has been in use since 2013 and remains widely downloaded, though recent development activity has slowed.
Use it for
- Add login/logout flows to a Flask web application with minimal boilerplate.
- Protect routes with @login_required decorator to enforce authentication.
- Implement remember-me functionality to persist user sessions across browser restarts.
- Load user identity from a session or request context without manual session parsing.
- Integrate custom user models and authentication backends without modifying Flask-Login itself.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you are building a Flask application that needs basic user session management.
Flask-Login is stable, widely used, and has no known vulnerabilities. The aging maintenance status is a minor concern—the last release was 2023-10-30 and development has slowed—but the package remains functional and the repository is not archived. Install it if you need straightforward session-based authentication; consider alternatives if you require active maintenance or modern authentication patterns like OAuth2.
Install
flask-login on PyPI
Before you install
Low install friction with only Flask and Werkzeug as runtime dependencies. Maintenance status is aging—last release was 2023-10-30 and the repository has not been archived, but development activity has slowed.
Requires Flask and Werkzeug; your application must define a user object implementing the required interface and provide a user_loader callback.
License in practice
MIT license is permissive, allowing use in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions beyond attribution.
Quickstart
pip install flask-login
import flask
import flask_login
app = flask.Flask(__name__)
app.secret_key = 'your-secret-key'
login_manager = flask_login.LoginManager()
login_manager.init_app(app)
class User(flask_login.UserMixin):
pass
@login_manager.user_loader
def load_user(user_id):
user = User()
user.id = user_id
return user
@app.route('/protected')
@flask_login.login_required
def protected():
return f'Logged in as: {flask_login.current_user.id}'Verify before relying
- Whether the aging maintenance status affects security patches or bug fixes for new Flask/Werkzeug versions.
- Current compatibility with modern Flask versions beyond what requires_python indicates.
Package facts
| License | MIT permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.7 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 2 packagesFlaskWerkzeug |
| Maintenance | Aging 1,019 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 27,907,450 / month, #844 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 4 - BetaEnvironment :: Web EnvironmentFramework :: FlaskIntended Audience :: DevelopersLicense :: OSI Approved :: MIT LicenseOperating System :: OS IndependentProgramming Language :: PythonTopic :: Internet :: WWW/HTTP :: Dynamic ContentTopic :: Software Development :: Libraries :: Python Modules |
Evidence: Flask_Login-0.6.3-py3-none-any.whl
Tags
Let your AI agent find packages like this
Example. Real query, live index.
You found this page by searching. An agent finds it by wishing: SkillFed indexes 14,416 PyPI packages by what they can do, searchable in plain language.
wish › “flask user authentication”
- Flask-LoginFlask-Login handles user session management for Flask applications,…
- Flask-SecurityFlask-Security adds authentication, authorization, and user…
- Flask-Security-TooAdds user authentication, authorization, and role-based access…
Give your agent the search over MCP, or paste the wish link into any chat.
More Python Modules packages
Converts domain names between Unicode and ASCII-compatible encoding (Punycode) according to IDNA 2008 and Unicode Technical Standard 46, with security validation and broader script coverage than the standard library.
Install it if you work with internationalized domain names, need to validate domains, or use HTTP clients that depend on it transitively.
Setuptools is a Python build backend and package management tool that handles building, distributing, and installing Python packages, including support for C/C++ extension modules.
PyYAML parses and emits YAML 1.1 data format, enabling serialization and deserialization of configuration files and Python objects to and from human-readable YAML text.
Pydantic validates Python data structures against type hints, coercing and checking input at runtime to ensure it matches a declared schema.
Provides reusable metadata objects for use with PEP-593 `typing.Annotated` to express common constraints like bounds, collection sizes, and predicates on types.
Install it if you use or build libraries that need to express type constraints in a standardized, inspectable way—or if you want to annotate your own types with…
Provides runtime tools to inspect and introspect Python type annotations, enabling programmatic examination of type hints at execution time.
See also fastapi-login · django-user-sessions · Flask-Principal · quart-auth · Flask-Session · Flask-HTTPAuth · Flask-Dance · flask-appbuilder · Flask-Testing · Flask-BasicAuth