I've been playing around with HTML5 and Javascript a lot lately and have been really impressed with the functionality of LocalStorage as well as SessionStorage. It got me to thinking - with the advent of these elements, is there really any discernible advantage to cookies anymore?

I am able to create both persistent as well as session dependent data (both lightweight as well as unhealthily robust objects) with these two data stores. What benefits, if any, do cookies provide over these? Is this the end of the road for our favorite web "treat"?

I've been playing around with HTML5 and Javascript a lot lately and have been really impressed with the functionality of LocalStorage as well as SessionStorage. It got me to thinking - with the advent of these elements, is there really any discernible advantage to cookies anymore?

I am able to create both persistent as well as session dependent data (both lightweight as well as unhealthily robust objects) with these two data stores. What benefits, if any, do cookies provide over these? Is this the end of the road for our favorite web "treat"?

• javascript
• html
• cookies

Share Improve this question Follow asked Dec 31, 2014 at 8:10 mattkgrossmattkgross 80122 gold badges1313 silver badges2525 bronze badges 1

• 1 yes, overtime they will likely be unneeded with localStorage and other options that will e up. Cookies were made ~1994, 20 years is a good run in technology – abc123 Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 8:13

Add a ment  | 

1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 9

...with the advent of these elements, is there really any discernible advantage to cookies anymore?

Yes: They get sent to the server with every request. That's what they were originally for, and that's their current purpose (well, and being a fallback for browsers that don't have web storage, but there are very few of those left). If you don't need the information sent to the server with every request (session identifiers, etc.), web storage or similar is your better choice.

Cookies were never a good choice for purely client-side data, because they add to the weight of requests and responses. They were just the only choice for a while. Now we have better client-side-only data storage choices, and we have cookies for the small set of use cases where you actually want information automatically sent to the server with every request.