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AWS Identity and Access Management VS Keycloak

Compare AWS Identity and Access Management VS Keycloak and see what are their differences

AWS Identity and Access Management logo AWS Identity and Access Management

AWS Identity and Access Management enables you to securely control access to AWS services and resources for your users.

Keycloak logo Keycloak

Open Source Identity and Access Management for modern Applications and Services.
  • AWS Identity and Access Management Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-02-02
  • Keycloak Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-20

AWS Identity and Access Management features and specs

  • Granular Control
    AWS IAM provides highly granular control over permissions, allowing administrators to fine-tune access policies down to individual actions on specific resources.
  • Scalability
    IAM is designed to scale with your AWS usage, accommodating complex organizational structures and a large number of users without performance degradation.
  • Integration with AWS Services
    Seamlessly integrates with all AWS services, enabling unified access management across the entire AWS ecosystem.
  • Security Features
    Includes advanced security features like multi-factor authentication (MFA), roles, and temporary security credentials to enhance the security of AWS accounts.
  • Audit and Compliance
    AWS IAM provides detailed logging and monitoring capabilities through AWS CloudTrail, facilitating compliance with regulatory requirements.
  • Cost-Effective
    IAM is free of charge, with no additional costs beyond the consumption of AWS resources themselves.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Identity and Access Management

  • Complexity
    The extensive capabilities of IAM can lead to complexity, making it challenging for new users to fully understand and configure permissions effectively.
  • Limited User Interface
    The IAM management console UI can be less intuitive, which may slow down the process of setting up and managing access policies.
  • Initial Setup
    Setting up IAM for a large organization with specific security requirements can be time-consuming and requires careful planning.
  • Learning Curve
    There is a steep learning curve for understanding IAM policies, roles, and their correct implementation, which might require specialized training.
  • Documentation Complexity
    While extensive, AWS documentation for IAM can sometimes be overwhelming and complex, making it difficult to find specific information quickly.

Keycloak features and specs

  • Open-Source
    Keycloak is an open-source identity and access management solution, which means it is free to use and has a community-driven support system. This can lead to lower costs and more flexibility compared to proprietary solutions.
  • Feature-Rich
    Keycloak offers a comprehensive set of features including single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), user federation, identity brokering, and social login. This makes it suitable for a wide range of use cases.
  • Customizability
    With Keycloak, you can customize the authentication and authorization processes through its extensible architecture, allowing for the addition of custom features and integrations.
  • Integration Capability
    Keycloak supports integration with various protocols such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SAML, making it versatile for integrating with different platforms and services.
  • Active Community
    Keycloak has an active and growing community of developers and users who contribute to its improvement and provide support, resources, and shared knowledge.

Possible disadvantages of Keycloak

  • Complexity
    Keycloak can be complex to set up and configure, especially for users who are not familiar with identity and access management concepts. This may require additional time and expertise.
  • Resource-Intensive
    Running Keycloak can be resource-intensive, requiring more CPU and memory compared to simpler authentication solutions. This may necessitate higher infrastructure costs.
  • Learning Curve
    The learning curve for Keycloak can be steep for new users due to its wide range of features and configuration options. Ample time might be required to fully understand and utilize its capabilities.
  • Documentation Quality
    While Keycloak has extensive documentation, some users find it to be insufficiently detailed or difficult to navigate, which can impede the setup and troubleshooting process.
  • Maintenance
    Operating a Keycloak instance involves ongoing maintenance tasks such as updates, security patches, and backups, which can be time-consuming and require dedicated resources.

AWS Identity and Access Management videos

AWS re:Inforce 2023 - A first-principles approach: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) (IAM201)

More videos:

  • Review - AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) Basics | AWS Training For Beginners

Keycloak videos

What is Keycloak and what are the main features | DevNation Live

More videos:

  • Review - Keycloak Overview
  • Review - Easily Secure Your Front and Back End app with Keycloak

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS Identity and Access Management and Keycloak)
Identity And Access Management
Identity Provider
34 34%
66% 66
SSO
31 31%
69% 69
Cloud Computing
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare AWS Identity and Access Management and Keycloak

AWS Identity and Access Management Reviews

We have no reviews of AWS Identity and Access Management yet.
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Keycloak Reviews

12 User Authentication Platforms [Auth0, Firebase Alternatives]
You can integrate Keycloak with your applications to have a single-sign-in and single-sign-out experience. Moreover, one can activate social logins without any modification in code. Additionally, it allows user authentication via existing OpenID Connect or SAML 2.0
Source: geekflare.com
10+ Open-source Single-Sign On (SSO) Solutions
Keycloak is a free, open-source identity and access management system with highly configurable Single-Sign-On (SSO) support.
Source: medevel.com
10 Best Auth0 Alternatives and Similar Platforms
Keycloak may be quite beneficial because it provides a built-in method for syncing with databases, such as LDAP or Active Directory, when your users already are registered on. If you use Social Login for social platforms such as Facebook, Keycloak might be a great tool for your organization.
Top 5 Open Source Single Sign-On Software In the Year 2021
KeyCloak is another free software that is based on OpenID Connect, OAuth2.0, and SAML2.0. It provides SSO capabilities across web applications and web services. Above all, this open source software provides integrations with LDAP and Active Directory. There is a logical user interface where users can manage roles, permissions, and sessions. Moreover, this free solution...
IAM: A comparison of open-source tools
/ Digitalberry news / IAM: A comparison of open-source toolsIAM: A comparison of open-source toolsWhy use an Identity Provider (IdP)?Comparative study of Identity Providers (IdP)1. Our team’s first choice: Keycloak2. In second place of our comparative study: Gluu3. Special mention: FusionAuthDiscover our expertiseContact our experts

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, AWS Identity and Access Management seems to be a lot more popular than Keycloak. While we know about 59 links to AWS Identity and Access Management, we've tracked only 4 mentions of Keycloak. 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.

AWS Identity and Access Management mentions (59)

View more

Keycloak mentions (4)

  • Beyond the login page
    Most of the time nowadays, I prefer offloading this to an identity provider, using OpenID Connect or soon Federated Credential Management (FedCM), even if that means shipping an identity provider as part of the deliverables (I generally go with Keycloak, with keycloak-config-cli to provision its configuration). I'm obviously biased though as I work in IT services, developping software mainly for... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Okta Says Hackers Stole Data for All Customer Support Users
    Yet another breach of Okta... Why are companies not running something like keycloak [1] themselves? Are administrative/maintenance costs too high or is it plausible deniability? [1] https://keycloak.org. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • I built a ready-to-use auth server with TypeScript and Express.js
    I'd stick with a solution like https://keycloak.org in that instance. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Authelia is an open-source authentication/authorization server with 2FA/SSO
    A few more projects in this space: - Keycloak (you won't get fired for picking this)[0] - CloudFoundry's UAA[1] - Gluu [2] - Keratin [3] - OpenUnison [4] - Dex[5] - Netlify's GoTrue[6] All of these solutions are a bit different but here are some of the axes: - Whether or not they function as an OAuth provider - Whether they're centered around application-user-login (email + password) or application auth (OAuth) or... - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS Identity and Access Management and Keycloak, you can also consider the following products

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

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

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

Atlassian Crowd - Crowd is a single sign-on and user identity solution.

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.

Google Cloud IAM - Google Cloud Identity & Access Management (IAM) lets administrators authorize who can take action on specific resources, giving you full control and visibility to manage cloud resources centrally.