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Amazon Cognito vs Okta Workforce Identity 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
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Okta Workforce Identity
Ranking in Access Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Authentication Systems (5th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (7th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 6.4%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Workforce Identity is 11.5%, up from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Wojciech Doganowski - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Tor Nordhagen - PeerSpot reviewer
Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced
The drawback of this solution is that in our shops, many staff members sometimes have to be borrowed from one shop to another and the solution does not really support having multiple roles. The user experience we would like to have when a person works in shop A which pays their salary is that they should have access to pretty much everything. Maybe you have somebody who is a manager in that shop A, he should be able to order new wear, he should be able to change the pricing, he should be able to empty the cash registry, and ship it to the bank. But when for instance, in COVID, people had to fill in for people in shops where a lot of people were sick, then they had to actually use user accounts of people that work in shop B. If you were employed in shop A, you could not work in shop B without borrowing somebody else's user ID and password. Which is really bad. We haven't been able to work around that and Okta Workforce Identity does not have a solution for it. We are now piloting their identity governance solution. Obviously, it's easy to give somebody access, give them an account, and give them roles, but it's hard to maintain that. For example, if you moved from, say working in a shop to working in a warehouse. But why do you still have all this shop access? The solution has until now not had anything to really support the process of taking away access. But now we are in a better release program of Okta's identity governance solution. Although it's very basic, the solution has started on a journey, but identity governance is something that Okta Workforce Identity really needs to improve. The ability or the options in the solution for changing the look and feel are not good enough because in our partner portal, essentially what they have is an ugly admin interface. The admin interface is good enough for us technical people because that's all we need. We work with the product and we're able to see the data but when it comes to presenting the service portal, Okta Workforce Identity does not have any capabilities really for making it look pretty. To add branding and different graphical user interface elements than Okta basic for essentially delegated admin for the business-to-business portal is horrifying because you're essentially using the tech admin. The only option we had and used, was to take the tech admin console and strip it. so that a vendor that has some goods that are sold in the shops, when they want to add a user on their side, say a driver or a packer on their side who should know how much they've packed in a truck to come to our warehouse, then the user interface that this vendor is using, these functional people will then have to use an extremely basic user interface.

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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."
"What is quite valuable is that we can outsource storage of the credentials to AWS, and they manage it quite securely."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"The solution is proto connective and integrates well with other AWS services."
"This is a scalable solution. If our app or general usage increases, this solution can support it."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"The multi-factor authentication setup has room for improvement."
"It made things a lot easier, especially with passwords."
"Other than Okta being an easy and awesome integration tool, one of the best features it has is the provisioning and deprovisioning, which makes management way easier. You don't need to be too technical to understand how it works."
"Valuable features include UD, SSO functionality, MFA and Adaptive MFA functionality, ability to link multiple Directory databases with UD."
"It's reliable and it does what it is advertised to do."
"Workforce Identity's best features include its user-friendliness and easy setup."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"They have good push authentications."
"It is dependent on the evolution of your user base. It depends on usage per user, so the more sign-ins there are, the more expensive it becomes, so it works best for smaller companies from a financial perspective."
 

Cons

"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."
"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."
"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."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"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 believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles."
"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."
"The training is too costly."
"They also have single sign-on (SSO). When we bought Okta Workforce Identity a year and a half ago, I was also looking at SSO, but not much documentation was available for SSO. The documentation for SSO should be a little more robust for somebody who is implementing it for the first time."
"The lifecycle management part can be improved. It should also have identity governance and the ability to choose a specific factor authentication at the application level. Its licensing and pricing can also be improved."
"We still had to write several internal programs/scripts to complete the user-provisioning process. Okta does not have the ability to provision mailbox accounts for on-premise Exchange or in a hybrid O365 environment. The Group Push function from Okta to AD did not work reliably in our environment."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve the way passwords are reset and how it interfaces with Microsoft."
"Okta doesn't have a partial push. It pushes down the full profile schema for lifecycle management or provisioning."
"Okta Workforce Identity can improve by having more features in governance."
"The error logging could be improved. Okta doesn't provide enough details when you are troubleshooting an issue. It's often difficult to fix it from our end, so we always need additional support from Okta."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 Amazon Cognito is expensive. We are on an annual subscription."
"The pricing of this solution is good compared to other solutions on the market."
"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."
"The price of this product could be lower."
"It is costly for large companies."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing model could be better for SMBs."
"I believe it competes well. The pricing is pretty competitive. I know that Microsoft also provides something similar with its MFA and identity services."
"The price of Okta Workforce Identity is competitively priced. We pay annually for the use of the solution."
"Workforce Identity is well-priced."
"The licensing is per user per month and includes full technical support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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?
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...
What needs improvement with Amazon Cognito?
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. Cog...
What do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta should have at least a local presense for countries that align with or comply with GDPR or data sovereignty, so there are no compliance or audit questions. There are integration issues with Of...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. Okta Workforce Identity and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,466 professionals have used our research since 2012.