title: Is OAuth good choice for RESTful API in this SaaS scenario?
body: <p>Is OAuth sensible to use when the user account info (user id's, passwords, roles, etc) is going to be maintained in our own back-end and when there will not be any sharing of resources with other sites?  Or is sharing the whole point of using OAuth?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Background:</strong></p>
  
  <p>I'm working on developing an enterprise SaaS product and we are creating a RESTful API to be used by our front-end applications.  Consumers of the API will be browser and native smartphone (iOS &amp; Android) applications that we develop.  Since we'll be supporting multiple client types, it makes sense to create a RESTful API that all our client apps can consume.</p>
  
  <p>Naturally we need to secure this RESTful API.  We are considering authenticating using HTTPS / Basic Auth but we are aware of some of the well known drawbacks to this approach.</p>
  
  <p>Some quick research shows OAuth is highly recommended.  But most of what I find with OAuth is in the context of authorizing web sites to share information on behalf of the user.</p>
  
  <p>Any info if most welcome.</p>