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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
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...
Ranking in Access Management
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (18th), Network Access Control (NAC) (11th), SSL VPN (7th), Remote Access (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 2.5%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 2.5%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon Cognito2.5%
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)2.5%
Other95.0%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

BM
Staff Software Engineer at Visa
Custom authentication has enabled secure multi-factor logins and unified access across apps
The features or capabilities of Amazon Cognito that I have found the most valuable so far include its seamless operation and the requirement of fewer integrations from the client side. All the features are there, enabling us to create the users, manage the groups, and manage access. Mostly, the access management is very good in Amazon Cognito, I would say. The benefits and positive impacts that Amazon Cognito has had in my experience include the fact that earlier we needed to implement so many things on behalf of the product itself. Now, the go-to-market strategy requires less than a week to complete integrations of the user flow, specifically mentioning that a basic authentication flow could be completed in a week itself. We don't have to care about how we manage the passwords, how we manage groups, and how we manage access management because all those things are there. It's handy, the documentation is very good, and it is easy to integrate. That's the reason I would say that the impact AWS is building on the product is great.
Senior Cyber Security Consultant at KoçSistem
Has provided reliable policy controls and secure web access for large enterprises
I consider Cloudflare when evaluating centralized access control features; Cloudflare utilizes multi-factor authentication and full API support, while F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) needs to enhance its API support. I recommend F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) for large companies such as Tüpraş and Ford. Tüpraş is one of the biggest companies in Turkey, along with other customers such as Tofaş, Euroko, Koç Holding, and more. For on-premises deployment, I would rate it a 10. For cloud deployment, I would rate it a seven. I primarily use it on-premises. I rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"The features most valuable to us are the ability to integrate with various IDPs and the capability to sync with multiple applications."
"The solution is proto connective and integrates well with other AWS services."
"What is quite valuable is that we can outsource storage of the credentials to AWS, and they manage it quite securely."
"The features or capabilities of Amazon Cognito that I have found the most valuable so far include its seamless operation and the requirement of fewer integrations from the client side."
"It was very stable, the solution itself."
"A lot of features are useful to me, including mostly the authentication, SAML, or SSO, with no sign-on."
"I rate the overall solution nine out of ten."
"The product allows us to create customized portals for your users."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual IP creation. It's our most frequently used feature."
"The performance of the solution is valuable."
"The tool is reliable and easy to configure."
"F5 BIG-IP APM is relatively easy to use."
 

Cons

"I would rate its scalability as five out of ten. Moving users between different pools or accounts creates new identities, which means IDs stored in our database must also be changed."
"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."
"I think Amazon Cognito provides less flexibility to customize at the moment."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in Amazon Cognito."
"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."
"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."
"The solution is quite costly."
"Integrating identity providers and single sign-on solutions can simplify user authentication and access control."
"If I could copy and paste objects instead of picking and configuring them from scratch each time, it would be great."
"The technical support’s response time must be improved."
"The stability of the F5 BIG-IP APM could be better."
"F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is not user-friendly and operates slowly."
"The operational deployment is not great and can be improved."
"The initial setup was not easy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Cognito?
I am aware that the pricing of Amazon Cognito is not managed by me directly but is managed by some other teams, specifically the DevOps teams. As far as I know, it is based on how many users we hav...
What needs improvement with Amazon Cognito?
I think Amazon Cognito provides less flexibility to customize at the moment. It is very tightly coupled with its own services, so it does not provide customization according to what the client need...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Cognito?
The usual use cases for Amazon Cognito that I have been working with mostly involve working for TLG Apps for three and a half years, where TLG Apps is a FinTech company in the UK. We were working f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability, akin to purchasing a Bentley as opposed to an Audi.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is not user-friendly and operates slowly. Additional features for architecture such as Anycast would be beneficial. The ability to run the Anycast feature woul...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
I am using F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) along with Bot Management, API Gateway, API Security, and F5 Cloud. I am using F5 Advanced WAF, but I switch between ZTNA solutions such as FortiSAS...
 

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: June 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.