Amazon Cognito Reviews

Name: Amazon Cognito
Brand: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Rating: 4 (11 reviews)

3.7 out of 5

11 reviews
72% 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 #8 ranked solution in top Access Management solutions. PeerSpot users give Amazon Cognito an average rating of 7.4 out of 10. Based on the analysis of the 11 most recent Amazon Cognito reviews, the overall sentiment is positive, with a sentiment score of 7.9. (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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October 2024

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Featured reviews

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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MOMEN ABDELSADEK

Senior ict specialist at Information& eGov Authority

I believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles. I encountered this problem two years ago when it seemed like we needed to take care of our tracking permissions. We do sometimes run into issues with Cognito. For example, we have seen cases of the software not disabling certain users from certain permissions. When we looked deeper, we discovered that one particular user's permissions were reset following an update. My recommendation for preventing this from happening in the future is to enrich the module with tracking. This would also be better for statistical tracking, user action tracking, and user permission tracking.

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Amazon Cognito mindshare

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

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Key learnings from peers

Last updated Oct 9, 2024

Valuable Features

Amazon Cognito's most valuable features include competitive pricing and efficient federation. Users appreciate pre and post-token generation, OTP and email validation, seamless integration with AWS services like Lambda and EC2. The built-in user management module saves time, simplifies development, and integrates easily with various applications, including Azure and Kubernetes. It offers easy group management and swift authentication, supports scalability with demand, and provides convenience by eliminating the need to build authentication systems from scratch.

"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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."

Room for Improvement

Amazon Cognito's integration process could be simplified, and its mobile app developer experience enhanced. Documentation is insufficiently clear, affecting ease of use. Multi-factor authentication lacks depth and security features. High costs impact scalability for larger organizations. There are demands for tracking improvements and enriched user profiles. Configuration and UI require more intuitive design, while user export evaluation and privileged access management need attention. Biometric validation could strengthen user identity verification.

"There is room for improvement in Amazon Cognito."
"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."
"You need to evaluate the export users. The multifactor authentication, much less this room for improving the configuration setup of that."

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

Amazon Cognito pricing is generally perceived as affordable compared to other market solutions, with many users appreciating its pay-as-you-go model based on the number of users. Some rate it two out of ten, citing expense concerns, while others find it reasonable, with overall satisfaction closer to five out of ten. Annual subscriptions and monthly licensing fees also factor into costs, but the overall consensus highlights scalability and affordability as attractive features for enterprise buyers.

"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 and user management, integrating it with services like Okta and Azure. It supports single sign-on, multifactor authentication, custom onboarding, and user access control. Companies appreciate its ease of use, requiring minimal code for secure data handling and user verification. Issues with B2C multifactor authentication prevent some projects from reaching production, but many find it effective for assigning policies, permissions, and integrating with Lambda solutions.

Service and Support

Premium AWS customers receive efficient support. Technical assistance is rated five out of ten by one user. Some users haven't utilized support themselves but have heard positive feedback. Amazon's support is described as satisfactory with decent response time and knowledgeable assistance.

Deployment

Many find Amazon Cognito's initial setup straightforward, though complexity varies. Documentation is essential, with customization options available. Deployments using Terraform take 15-30 minutes, longer in complex environments. Some suggest templates for ease, while others find configuration and user onboarding manageable. Factors like company size and deployment choices affect time. Ratings vary, with some rating it seven or eight out of ten. Setup needs multiple engineers, though some highlight simplicity.

Scalability

Amazon Cognito receives mixed feedback on scalability. Many users praise its ability to handle increased demand efficiently, even for thousands of users. However, some express concerns about scalability in terms of features and potential cost increases. The backend and production capabilities sometimes seem limited for future expansion. Despite these concerns, a significant number of users rate it positively, supporting numerous customers and ongoing growth ambitions.

Stability

Amazon Cognito generally receives positive stability evaluations, with many users noting its reliable performance and rating it between seven to ten. Some users experience no stability issues, while others mention challenges, especially with integration or different app environments. There is acknowledgment for areas needing enhancement. Despite varying experiences, Amazon Cognito often maintains stable operations without significant disruptions.

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

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