Amazon Cognito Reviews

Name: Amazon Cognito
Brand: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Rating: 4 (12 reviews)

3.8 out of 5

12 reviews
75% willing to recommend

What is Amazon Cognito?

Amazon Cognito is a simple user identity and data synchronization service that helps you securely manage and synchronize app data for your users across their mobile devices. You can create unique identities for your users through a number of public login providers (Amazon, Facebook, and Google) and also support unauthenticated guests. You can save app data locally on users’ devices allowing your applications to work even when the devices are offline. With Amazon Cognito, you can save any kind of data in the AWS Cloud, such as app preferences or game state, without writing any backend code or managing any infrastructure. This means you can focus on creating great app experiences instead of having to worry about building and managing a backend solution to handle identity management, network state, storage, and sync.

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Amazon Cognito is the #7 ranked solution in top Access Management solutions. PeerSpot users give Amazon Cognito an average rating of 7.6 out of 10. Based on the analysis of the 12 most recent Amazon Cognito reviews, the overall sentiment is positive, with a sentiment score of 6.9. (Among the highest in the category). Amazon Cognito is most commonly compared to Microsoft Entra ID: Amazon Cognito vs Microsoft Entra ID. Amazon Cognito is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 57% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a computer software company, accounting for 19% of all views.

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Featured reviews

Subrata Mukherjee

Senior Technical Architect; Head of Platform at Blenheim Chalcot IT Services India

We have used Cognito for our architecture model to handle user authentication and access control for our web and mobile applications. Additionally, we have incorporated Cognito not only for user authentication but also for social sign-in, SSO integration with our organization’s IDP, allowing us to…

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Julius Mboya

Chief technical officer at Solvezy Technology Kenya Limited

The solution is deployed on the cloud in our organization. Our entire team of managers, developers, admins, and normal users are needed for the solution's deployment and maintenance. Amazon Cognito is a reliable and stable tool. It fuses very well and works harmoniously with other microservices. Amazon Cognito is fully integratable with other AWS services or third-party applications. We've done Azure AD authentication, which we currently use, and it works well. The rest are the token and key, which we use for authentication at the service level. The solution’s documentation is very easy to follow. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

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Erik Aceiro

Solutions Architect III at Raizen

The developer experience for mobile apps is terrible. Documentation is very poor and it is difficult to read the documents available to put things into practice. Our team has issues finding information related to using the solution. SDK and libraries available for mobile apps are terrible. For example, if you use MFA to migrate one user from your database to the pool, you need to use Lambda functions or other methods in AWS to get the solution enabled. It is extremely difficult to put a very, very scalable project into practice. Our team doesn't think you can use the solution for B2C on a large scale. We thought the solution would provide an agile experience but it does not. The solution needs to keep a history of passwords. For example, you should be able to check if customers used the same password in the past when connecting to a company by username and password. This type of feature is a must for our project. The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent. MFA should occur on the Facebook or Google side and also on the solution's side. This is a big problem because we have wallets, credit cards, and sensitive data stored for each customer. One layer of security is totally missing.

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Amazon Cognito mindshare

As of November 2024, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito in the Access Management category stands at 7.6%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Access Management

Key learnings from peers

Last updated Oct 31, 2024

Valuable Features

Amazon Cognito offers valuable features such as competitive pricing, efficient federation, integration with AWS services, and pre and post-token generation. It provides OTP and email validation with a robust user management module. Seamless integration with multiple applications, including Azure and Kubernetes, along with easy user group management, simplifies processes. Cognito's quick authentication, ability to scale with demand, and support for various IDPs enhance its value. It efficiently manages multi-factor authentication, saving development time.

"The features most valuable to us are the ability to integrate with various IDPs and the capability to sync with multiple applications."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"The multi-factor authentication setup has room for improvement."

Room for Improvement

Amazon Cognito needs improvement in integration simplicity, documentation clarity, and mobile support. The absence of a history for password checks and insufficient MFA options are issues, particularly with sensitive data. The cost is high for organizations, and there's a need for simple configuration and intuitive UI. Multiparameter setups and user permission tracking require enhancements, along with better privileged access management. Comprehensive documentation and support for large-scale B2C use are necessary.

"The setup and configuration can be complex, especially for advanced use cases."
"There is room for improvement in Amazon Cognito."
"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."

ROI

Users consistently noted high ROI from Amazon Cognito, citing its cost-effectiveness and ease of integration. They experienced significant reductions in development time due to pre-built authentication features. Enhanced security protocols also provided peace of mind, reducing potential liabilities. Scalability allowed businesses to grow without additional costs, further maximizing returns. User feedback emphasized Amazon Cognito’s ability to handle large user bases efficiently, enhancing overall satisfaction and perceived value.

Pricing

Enterprise users find Amazon Cognito's pricing variable, primarily based on user count and subscription type, such as monthly or annual plans. Some rate its affordability positively, citing competitive costs and scalability, while others perceive it as expensive, with ratings ranging from two to seven out of ten. The pay-as-you-go model provides flexibility, but smaller organizations sometimes find it less economical. Monthly fees per user can reach $600, without additional setup costs.

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"The product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"The price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."

Popular Use Cases

Organizations primarily use Amazon Cognito for authentication, authorization, and user management across web and mobile applications, integrating with identity providers like Okta and Azure. It facilitates custom onboarding, provides single sign-on capabilities, and manages security features such as OTP and email verification. Companies benefit from its integration with different financial services, easy management of user permissions, and reduction of development efforts by offering plug-and-play functionalities. Some face challenges with B2C multifactor authentication and require additional training.

Service and Support

Amazon Cognito customer service is rated highly by users for effective communication through voice channels, telephone, and email. Premium AWS customers experience efficient support, while others describe it as satisfactory, noting good response time and knowledge. Although some have not directly interacted with support, feedback highlights potential positive experiences. Technical support receives mixed ratings, with some rating it as average.

Deployment

Amazon Cognito's initial setup is generally seen as straightforward and easy, though complexity can arise with production environments. Utilizing Terraform, deployment typically takes 15 to 30 minutes, but can extend to two hours in complex settings. Documentation is crucial and customization options are available. Users rate the setup between seven and eight out of ten, highlighting the need for templates and easy UI customization. Complexity increases with additional services and specific company configurations.

Scalability

Amazon Cognito is generally perceived as scalable, with some users highlighting effective scalability for large groups and usage growth. However, some express concerns regarding back-end scalability and cost increases. Ratings range from seven to ten out of ten, indicating variance in experiences. Some users manage thousands of accounts successfully, while others find scalability needs improvement for particular custom developments. Many appreciate its ability to handle increased demands in growing environments.

Stability

Amazon Cognito demonstrates stability according to user feedback. While some report instability between native and iOS applications and integration challenges, others commend its reliability without significant downtime or bugs. Ratings for stability vary, with scores ranging from seven to ten out of ten. Many users have not faced issues and find it consistent and dependable.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

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