Amazon Cognito vs. AWS Identity & Access Management

Well Suited

1. B2C mobile and web apps with a high number of users.
2. Cheaper and cost-effective.
3. If the other pieces of the infra are already using AWS services like Lambda, S3, Pinpoint, etc.

Not Suited For:

1. Advanced use-cases (Biometrics based authentication) Email, and other MFA channels.
2. For any use-cases needing SCIM.
3. Customized flows of SSO, and MFA will need a layer on Lambda and other AWS services.

Incentivized

AWS Identity & Access Management is well suited to managing AWS application access between services. Very helpful for both third-party products and in-house developed software. Very happy with how easy it is to create access keys and then share them in our environment. AWS IAM can also be used to manage individual users, but I highly recommend using AWS SSO for that purpose instead. Much easier to deploy for console access and from a security side easier to turn off in one click from your SSO provider.

Incentivized

• Strong integration with React.js and client-side applications
• Easy to bridge Cognito identities with the rest of the AWS ecosystem
• Easy to store user profile data directly in Cognito rather than having to build additional services/endpoints
• Easy integration with AWS Lambda to extend and add sophistication to the service

Incentivized

• Customized access per key to limit scope
• Safely distributes access keys
• Provides access audits

Incentivized

• SCIM implementation is not present.
• B2B SaaS use-cases are very hard to configure. More suitable or B2C use-cases.
• Needs more recipes, plugins, SDK's.
• 2FA with Email as an OTP channel is not supported.
• 2 FA using biometrics is not available; can be customised using lambda.

Incentivized

• Better integration with roles and policies so you don't need three windows open to create a new IAM user
• Display recommended configurations based on services being used
• Easier options to base config on existing users

Incentivized

We would be unable to manage the interconnected nature of our AWS services without AWS IAM.

Incentivized

All the features AWS Cognito offers gives the user the options they need without making it too complicated. Your customers will be happy. On the administration site usability is also great. After a small learning curve, you can setup Cognito for your usage

Incentivized

AWS Support overall is poor. Your main resources are trainings and the docs, and the docs can be very confusing. Using Cognito well involves having a developer learn it deeply and help support your team in understanding it. That said, Cognito's competitors also have dismal support and even worse documentation, so while this isn't a strength for Cognito it may still be the frontrunner here.

Incentivized

They are ideal tools to create a secure and unique login experience for our applications. Thanks to its API authorization, Amazon Cognito ensures connections to applications that are secure.It is easy to use and provides easy access to files and applications that you need to complete your goal.

Incentivized

While we do not use Microsoft Azure for our servers and other customer-facing services. If we did, we would have to use Microsoft Azure Active Directory to manage access to services appropriately. It's difficult to quantify the differences between the services as they are truly different. I would recommend choosing AWS or Azure, then using the identity management provided by the same vendor.

Incentivized

• Amazon Cognito has had a positive impact on our business by allowing us to develop services that require user sign-up and sign-in more rapidly. Not only do we not need to build or maintain these features, but Cognito's implementation is also better than what we would be justified in building ourselves.
• Amazon Cognito makes user management easy. This reduces the time we have to spend supporting users. Non-technical product managers can even use the AWS Console to manage users without requiring support from developers.
• Amazon Cognito is likely more secure than what would be built in-house; a portion of our attack surface is now managed by Amazon.

Incentivized

• Without IAM, it would be difficult to use AWS across services. Increased ROI

Incentivized