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Amazon Cognito VS Azure Active Directory for Developers

Compare Amazon Cognito VS Azure Active Directory for Developers and see what are their differences

Amazon Cognito logo Amazon Cognito

Amazon Cognito lets you add user sign-up, sign-in, and access control to your web and mobile apps quickly and easily. It scales to millions of users and supports sign-in with social identity providers and enterprise identity providers via SAML 2.0.

Azure Active Directory for Developers logo Azure Active Directory for Developers

Microsoft identity platform is an evolution of the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) developer platform.
  • Amazon Cognito Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-13
  • Azure Active Directory for Developers Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-21

Amazon Cognito features and specs

  • Scalability
    Amazon Cognito can automatically scale to handle millions of users, making it suitable for both small and large applications.
  • Security
    It is integrated with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and comes with built-in security features such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and encryption.
  • Integrations
    Cognito seamlessly integrates with other AWS services and can be easily incorporated into your existing AWS infrastructure.
  • Federated Identities
    It supports federated identities, allowing users to sign in with different identity providers like Google, Facebook, and enterprise identity providers via SAML.
  • User Management
    Offers robust user management features such as user groups, roles, and fine-grained access permissions, which are essential for more complex applications.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon Cognito

  • Complexity
    Setting up and configuring Cognito can be complex, especially for developers who are not familiar with AWS services or identity management.
  • Cost
    While the initial tier is free, costs can add up quickly for applications with a large user base and high interaction volume.
  • Limited Customization
    Although you can customize some aspects of the authentication flow, there are limitations which can be restrictive if you need highly tailored authentication processes.
  • Regional Availability
    Cognito may not be available in all AWS regions, which can be a limitation if your application needs to comply with data residency requirements or leverage a specific AWS region.
  • Learning Curve
    There is a learning curve associated with understanding how to effectively use and integrate Cognito within your application, which can take time and resources.

Azure Active Directory for Developers features and specs

  • Integration with Microsoft Services
    Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) integrates seamlessly with Microsoft services, providing a unified identity platform for accessing Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and other services.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    Azure AD provides robust support for a wide range of platforms, including Windows, iOS, Android, and web applications, making it a versatile choice for developers targeting multiple environments.
  • Scalability
    Azure AD can handle millions of users and billions of authentications per day, making it highly scalable for enterprise applications.
  • Security Features
    It offers advanced security features like multi-factor authentication (MFA), conditional access, and identity protection, helping developers enhance the security of their applications.
  • Single Sign-On (SSO)
    Developers can implement single sign-on functionality, allowing users to access multiple applications with one set of credentials, improving user experience and security.
  • Comprehensive API Access
    Azure AD exposes a comprehensive set of APIs, enabling developers to integrate identity management and authentication features directly into their applications.
  • B2C and B2B Support
    Azure AD supports both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) identity solutions, offering flexibility in targeting different types of users and clients.

Possible disadvantages of Azure Active Directory for Developers

  • Complexity
    The wide range of features and capabilities can lead to complexity in configuration and management, requiring a learning curve for developers who are new to Azure AD.
  • Cost
    While there are free tiers, many advanced features require premium subscriptions, which can increase costs for organizations, particularly startups or smaller companies.
  • Limited Non-Microsoft Integration
    Integration with third-party, non-Microsoft services can be less straightforward compared to integration with Microsoft services, requiring additional configuration and effort.
  • Latency Concerns
    In some scenarios, particularly for globally distributed applications, latency can be an issue, potentially affecting the responsiveness of authentication and directory access.
  • Feature Overlap
    For organizations already using other identity management solutions, there may be feature overlap, which could lead to redundant systems and inefficient processes.

Amazon Cognito videos

Amazon Cognito Tutorial - Amazon Cognito User Pools & AWS Amplify Setup

Azure Active Directory for Developers videos

No Azure Active Directory for Developers videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory for Developers)
Identity Provider
95 95%
5% 5
Identity And Access Management
SSO
96 96%
4% 4
Monitoring Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory for Developers

Amazon Cognito Reviews

12 User Authentication Platforms [Auth0, Firebase Alternatives]
Cognito is Amazon’s cloud application authentication solution for the masses. It’s a low code deployment that can be used with conventional passwords or 3rd party logins like Google or Facebook.
Source: geekflare.com
Auth0 Vs cognito
Auth0 is far, far easier to implement. But… it is way more expensive. We started on Auth0 and then switched to Cognito. Cognito has cost us a lot of development time. On the other hand all of our data is collected in a single place, AWS, making it easier to analyze (Cloudwatch alerts).

Azure Active Directory for Developers Reviews

We have no reviews of Azure Active Directory for Developers yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Amazon Cognito seems to be a lot more popular than Azure Active Directory for Developers. While we know about 69 links to Amazon Cognito, we've tracked only 6 mentions of Azure Active Directory for Developers. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Amazon Cognito mentions (69)

  • Securing Your Spring Boot Fortress: Best Practices for Robust Applications
    AWS Cognito: Offers user management, authentication, and authorization services. Provides pre-built UI components for user registration and login. AWS Cognito Documentation. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Make Tekton Dashboard user authenticated at EKS using AWS Cognito
    -- There will be a oauth2-proxy service deployed -- This service will be exposed via the loadbalancer and the loadbalancer will be mapped against the your domain eg tekton-dashboard.myeks.com -- The upstream of the oauth-proxy service is the tekton-dashboard service. -- We will use AWS Cognito as the OIDC provider for oauth2-proxy service ie user will be authenticated via AWS Cognito. -- With the above setup,... - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Serverless Security - Cognito Misconfigurations
    Below I look into two possible misconfigurations for the Amazon Cognito service. This is a service from AWS that let's you add sign-up and authentication capabilities to your application quickly and easily. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • AWS Cognito - IAM in the Cloud
    AWS Cognito is a service that simplifies identity management for apps built in the AWS ecosystem. It facilitates the authentication of users and the authorization of those users to access resources in your application. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Friday Thoughts on email validation
    The authentication system is web based and thus uses HTML1. There is a backend written in JavaScript (actually TypeScript), which in turn - for some operations - talks to a service written in .NET that stores data in AWS Cognito. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
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Azure Active Directory for Developers mentions (6)

  • Is it possible to have an custom connector API for a login in Powerapps?
    2) having a custom connector and using it inside for accessing an API or any other services that require auth => possible. There are many ways how to authenticate users in this case. MS Identity platform . Source: over 3 years ago
  • Access Permissions for a SharePoint Site/List within a PowerApp?
    The catch is Authentication. You will have to handle it. MS Identity platform gives us quite a bit of choices so you can read here .MS Identity. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Performance Improvements in .NET 6
    Who is "them"? Microsoft? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/. - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • SAML Is Insecure by Design
    Https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/ this is the correct link if you want to develop something with the identity platform, the other link is more or less admin documentation... - Source: Hacker News / almost 4 years ago
  • Blazor Webassembly App + Windows Authentication
    Microsoft Identity Platform, when you start a Blazor project in Visual Studio? Https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/. Source: almost 4 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory for Developers, you can also consider the following products

Auth0 - Auth0 is a program for people to get authentication and authorization services for their own business use.

Okta - Enterprise-grade identity management for all your apps, users & devices

JumpCloud - Cloud-based directory services. Alternative to Microsoft Active Directory.

OneLogin - On-demand SSO, directory integration, user provisioning and more

Oracle Identity Manager - Oracle Identity Management enables oganizations to effectively manage the end-to-end lifecycle of user identities across all enterprise resources.

Microsoft Azure Active Directory - Azure Active Directory is a comprehensive identity and access management cloud solution that provides a robust set of capabilities to manage users and groups and help secure access to applications including Microsoft online services like Office 365 …