Amazon Cognito vs IBM Security Verify Access comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM are both solutions in the Access Management category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.6, while IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 6.3% mindshare in AM, compared to IBM’s 3.8% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Amazon Cognito

Read 15 Amazon Cognito reviews

1,686 Views
1,602 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

IBM Security Verify Access

Read 8 IBM Security Verify Access reviews

1,592 Views
1,019 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon Cognito

IBM Security Verify Access

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

IBM Security Verify Access and Amazon Cognito compete in the IAM space. IBM Security Verify Access is preferred for customization, while Amazon Cognito wins for AWS integration.

Features: IBM Security Verify Access offers robust SSO, MFA, and detailed access control. Amazon Cognito provides tight AWS integration, easy user pool management, and federated identities.

Room for Improvement: IBM Security Verify Access needs a more intuitive configuration process and better documentation. Amazon Cognito needs better support for custom attributes and improved error logging.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Security Verify Access requires professional services for deployment but has highly rated customer service. Amazon Cognito has simpler deployment but mixed customer service reviews.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Security Verify Access has higher upfront costs with substantial long-term ROI. Amazon Cognito offers a cost-effective pay-as-you-go model with good ROI due to lower ongoing costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Cognito vs. IBM Security Verify Access Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Cognito vs. IBM Security Verify Access

September 2025

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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

10th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Security Verify Access

Ranking in Access Management

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (13th), Identity Management (IM) (21st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 6.3%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Verify Access is 3.8%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Access Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon Cognito	6.3%
IBM Security Verify Access	3.8%
Other	89.9%

Access Management

Featured Reviews

Wojciech Doganowski

Solutions Architect & PMO at AS TV Play Baltics/TV3 Group

International setup localization challenges drive custom development while outsourcing credential management enhances security

We are using it in an international setup where we have multiple services running in multiple countries. Cognito localizes only regarding language, but the service is localized in each country. Cognito has the possibility to render the login screen and all the customer flows related to managing the account. Still, it's useless in an international setup. They are unable to localize these screens, so we had to write our own screens and just use the Cognito API. I hope they will fix this soon because it's useful to rely on already prepared flows for all the account management. As it doesn't work with different languages, rewriting it is quite complicated. Additionally, maybe they could find another step in the price so there is not such a significant jump from the basic to extended functionality. Some flexibility would be helpful.

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Ateeq Rehman

Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited

Has improved secure user access while managing development through multiple technologies

I have already explained this in my previous call; I don't handle financial terms and commercials. Pricing is generally managed by functional teams and management looking after licensing matters. In Pakistan, vendors such as Oracle and IBM manage account relationships with clients and have tailored pricing models, so I do not have sufficient insights into that aspect.IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based. The complexity and scalability of the architecture necessitate in-depth technical knowledge and understanding of the system. Thus, installation is not as simple as clicking through; it requires extensive configuration of the underlying application servers, such as IBM WebSphere, where these products are deployed and configured.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."

"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."

"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."

"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."

"The federation is one of the most efficient features as the pricing is competitive."

"The multi-factor authentication setup has room for improvement."

"What is quite valuable is that we can outsource storage of the credentials to AWS, and they manage it quite securely."

"I rate Amazon Cognito nine out of ten."

More Amazon Cognito pros

"IBM Security Verify Access is providing a secure way of handling the user login journey, and secure user authentication is fully managed by ISAM or ISVA."

"I have found this solution to be really practical and when a user wants to log in, it is effortless and runs smooth."

"The solution has powerful authentification and authorization. It offers a good way to increase security."

"The most valuable feature of IBM Security Access Manager, at least for my company, is multi-factor authentication. That's the only feature my company is using. The solution works well and has no glitches. IBM Security Access Manager is a very good solution, so my company is still using it."

"Its stability and UI are most valuable."

"IBM Security Verify Access, formerly known as ISAM, IBM Security Access Manager, now renamed to ISVA, integrates with central directory services for our organization and provides user management functionality."

"From the integration point of view, it supports SAML, OIDC, and OAuth. For legacy applications that don't have support for SAML and other new protocols, it provides single sign-on access to end-users. From the integration compatibility point of view, it is highly capable."

"The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via email or SMS. This ensures secure access to your accounts by providing multiple authentication options."

More IBM Security Verify Access pros

Cons

"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."

"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."

"In a future release, we would like to have different methods to validate the characteristic of a user. For example, we would like to use biometric data to analyze the behavior of users."

"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."

"Amazon Cognito could be improved by making it easier for us to add more data to the token, allowing customization of JWT. It requires a complex program to customize the token currently, however, the UI could support this configuration better."

"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."

"I believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles."

More Amazon Cognito cons

"The user interface for users and administrators could be improved to make it easier. Automating some functions could also be beneficial."

"There are a lot of areas that can be improved, but the main area is the lack of customization. You cannot easily customize anything in the product. It is not easy to tweak the functionality. It is challenging to change the out-of-the-box functionality."

"What we'd like improved in IBM Security Access Manager is its onboarding process as it's complex, particularly when onboarding new applications. We need to be very, very careful during the onboarding. We have no issues with IBM Security Access Manager because the solution works fine, apart from the onboarding process and IBM's involvement in onboarding issues. If we need support related to the onboarding, we've noticed a pattern where support isn't available, or they don't have much experience, or we're not getting a response from them. We're facing the same issue with IBM Guardium. As we're just focusing on the multi-factor authentication feature of IBM Security Access Manager and we didn't explore any other features, we don't have additional features to suggest for the next release of the solution, but we're in discussion about exploring ID management and access management features, but those are just possibilities because right now, we're focused on exploring our domain."

"They can improve the single sign-on configuration for OIDC and OAuth. That is not very mature in this product, and they can improve it in this particular area. OIDC is a third-party integration that we do with the cloud platforms, and OAuth is an authorization mechanism for allowing a user having an account with Google or any other provider to access an application. Organizations these days are looking for just-in-time provisioning use cases, but IBM Security Access Manager is not very mature for such use cases. There are only a few applications that can be integrated, and this is where this product is lagging. However, in terms of configuration and single sign-on mechanisms, it is a great product."

"The solution could be classified as a hilt system. There are a lot of resources being used and it is suitable for very large enterprises or the public sector."

"Configuration could be simplified for the end-user."

"IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based."

More IBM Security Verify Access cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."

"The price of Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."

"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 Amazon Cognito is expensive. We are on an annual subscription."

"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."

"The pricing of this solution is good compared to other solutions on the market."

"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."

"The product is not expensive. It depends on the number of users."

"The license and costs depend on the amount range of users you have. For just approximately 2,000 users, the price is practical and fair. However, when you have 20,000 users, it starts to become really expensive, and the discount per user is not attractive enough to go ahead and purchase."

"It costs about 300K AED for a year. Its pricing is a bit on the higher end, but in comparison to other products in the market, its price is still better. There are lots of other products that are very costly."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Insurance Company

13%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Cognito?

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

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Cognito?

The basic functionality is reasonably priced, but the extended functionalities, especially the extended security, are quite expensive. There is a significant jump from the basic to the extended fun...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon Cognito?

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Security Access Manager?

The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via ema...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Security Access Manager?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Security Access Manager?

We are still using the IBM BPM platform to automate the processes for our organization.I generally use Microsoft Project for project planning and schedule management, especially in relation to Orac...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 61% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

ForgeRock vs Amazon Cognito

Compared 4% of the time

OneLogin by One Identity vs Amazon Cognito

Compared 3% of the time

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Oracle Access Manager vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 19% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 13% of the time

Okta Workforce Identity vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 9% of the time

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Cloud Identity Service vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Security Verify Access Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Cognito

October 2025

Download Amazon Cognito product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Security Verify Access

October 2025

Download IBM Security Verify Access product report

Also Known As

No data available

IBM Security Verify Access (SVA), IBM Security Access Manager, ISAM

Overview

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.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

IBM Security Verify Access is a complete authorization and network security policy management solution. It provides end-to-end protection of resources over geographically dispersed intranets and extranets.Provides a wide range of built-in authenticators and supports external authenticators.Provides permit and deny decisions for protected resources requests in the secure domain through the authorization API.Manages secure access to private internal network-based resources by using the public Internet's broad connectivity and ease of use with a corporate firewall system.

IBM

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

POST Luxembourg

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Cognito vs. IBM Security Verify Access

September 2025

Free Report: Amazon Cognito vs. IBM Security Verify Access

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