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Amazon Cognito vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Cognito
Ranking in Access Management
6th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...
Ranking in Access Management
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (19th), Network Access Control (NAC) (8th), SSL VPN (5th), Remote Access (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 6.4%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 2.0%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Erik Aceiro - PeerSpot reviewer
Good integration with AWS services but not feasible for B2C because MFAs are nonexistent
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.
Ashish Kumar Rai - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers remote access control, good GUI and easy to configure
I'd suggest improved documentation integration directly within the GUI. Right now, finding comprehensive documentation often requires going to external websites like the community portal. In the APM interface itself, they could add direct hyperlinks to relevant online documentation. This would provide easy access to admin guides and other resources when working within the GUI.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"This is a scalable solution. If our app or general usage increases, this solution can support it."
"One of the key benefits of this software is its ease of integration with a wide range of applications, including mobile apps and web applications. This simplifies the process of integration, and it can be seamlessly incorporated with Azure, Kubernetes, and other software systems."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"Cognito speeds up our development and saves us time."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"The multi-factor authentication setup has room for improvement."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are the pre and post-token generation, and the different Cognito triggers. It has lots of functionality and flexibility."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual IP creation. It's our most frequently used feature."
"The performance of the solution is valuable."
"Stickiness is the most valuable feature of the product."
"A lot of features are useful to me, including mostly the authentication, SAML, or SSO, with no sign-on."
"The portal access was very good."
"In my opinion, the GUI is perfect with the configuration options provided. F5 BIG-IP has given customization options and policy configuration tools in the GUI. It's good and good enough to work."
"Our organization is small - a college with about 3,500 students. We use F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager to protect our site, especially from the Iranian attacks we faced last year. We restrict access to only inside the country."
"The tool is reliable and easy to configure."
 

Cons

"Cognito triggers can improve by providing more direct use cases rather than giving a white paper. A white paper is not at all interesting, it has too many details. It would be a benefit to provide a smaller document that is summarized. The smaller version would bring microdata, macro data is not helpful."
"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."
"There is room for improvement in Amazon Cognito."
"I believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles."
"The secure authentication of Amazon Cognito has benefited our company. We were previously using legacy signup systems."
"You need to evaluate the export users. The multifactor authentication, much less this room for improving the configuration setup of that."
"Amazon Cognito could be improved by making it easier for us to add more data to the token, allowing customization of JWT."
"The ease and simplicity of integration could be improved when using this solution. When using Okta, scope is a single endpoint with a parameter as a scope. In the Cognito for each scope, there is a separate endpoint."
"F5 BIG-IP APM disconnects when you leave it for long enough, but that is natural for IT solutions to do. That's a little bit frustrating."
"We do not have knowledgeable support teams locally."
"The solution is quite costly."
"I'd suggest improved documentation integration directly within the GUI. Right now, finding comprehensive documentation often requires going to external websites like the community portal."
"The price of this product can be improved."
"Regarding price, I'm not directly involved in purchasing, but our CIO thinks the product is very expensive. He's considering moving from the tool to Citrix NetScaler WAF because it's cheaper, and we already have Citrix for VDI. We got NetScaler almost free as part of our VDI deal. Three years ago, I convinced him to use the solution because it's better, but now, with budget constraints, he may want to switch."
"Cloud services are something that F5 Access Policy Manager could do better"
"I have had a lot of issues in the past few months with the agents, which was disappointing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"The price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is expensive. We are on an annual subscription."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."
"The pricing of this solution is good compared to other solutions on the market."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Recently, they have simplified the licensing"
"The tool is a little bit expensive."
"The product is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Cognito?
The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Cognito?
Pricing is considered expensive for smaller organizations. Cognito's pricing was rated seven out of ten due to its cost.
What needs improvement with Amazon Cognito?
The setup and configuration can be complex, especially for advanced use cases. A dedicated documentation portal with comprehensive information would be helpful. The user interface could be more int...
What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
In my opinion, the GUI is perfect with the configuration options provided. F5 BIG-IP has given customization options and policy configuration tools in the GUI. It's good and good enough to work.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
Sometimes, if I erase or add a new agent in the policy, I can't go backwards, even if I haven't saved the access policy. I want the option to delete it, however, there's no option. I need to create...
 

Also Known As

No data available
F5 Access Policy Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.