No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Amazon Cognito vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) comparison

Why PeerSpot?
Sponsored
 

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

Cisco Duo
Sponsored
Ranking in Access Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (5th), Authentication Systems (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (7th)
Amazon Cognito
Ranking in Access Management
9th
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
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (20th), Network Access Control (NAC) (11th), SSL VPN (8th), Remote Access (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.1%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 2.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 2.6%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.1%
Amazon Cognito2.6%
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)2.6%
Other91.7%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Charles Slaustas - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
Supports seamless authentication for users across multiple organizations and personal portals
The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter. I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.
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.
SÜ
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

"I lead an IT organization that has a significant amount of technical debt, and we're not in a zero-trust architecture yet. I'm pushing in that direction. Duo helps me considerably with my identity in an environment where I don't have zero trust. It's helping me bridge the gap until I can build a zero trust architecture."
"The features of Cisco Duo that I like the most are all of the above, especially the multifactor authentication that is very easy to use now."
"All features of the solution are effective, Duo supports BYOD policies by allowing users to authenticate securely from their personal devices."
"Regarding the stability and reliability of Cisco Duo, it is very good."
"It is very easy for users to enroll, and there are a lot of insights that we get from using the app on devices that people use to authenticate."
"My advice to others looking into using Cisco Duo is that it is a great product, and I recommend it for everyone, specifically for those using Cisco Secure Client."
"The product is reliable and easy to use."
"My experience with Cisco Duo's strong security authentication system has benefited my organization; it is quite simple."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"I rate Amazon Cognito nine out of ten."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"I would recommend Cognito for users who are already AWS customers."
"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."
"Cognito speeds up our development and saves us time."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."
"The features most valuable to us are the ability to integrate with various IDPs and the capability to sync with multiple applications."
"The product allows us to create customized portals for your users."
"The performance of the solution is valuable."
"I recommend F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) to others due to its reliability, and it is perceived as critical to security infrastructure."
"It was very stable, the solution itself."
"This is a product that is easy to install and integrate, and it is simple to use."
"The load balancing features are valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual IP creation. It's our most frequently used feature."
"The F5 Access Policy Manager is something that I have experience with and I am happy with it."
 

Cons

"General announcements when new features come out with Cisco Duo should be broadcasted to customers who are using it, which might bring more accessibility to their documents so users can be more in tune with updates."
"Duo Security should have more customized use cases. For example, if a client needs to have more customization, it would be better to connect directly with Duo's R&D to try to discuss the issues together in order to add customizations."
"The only issue I encountered was related to the expiration of Duo Unix versions below 2.0.3 on February 3rd."
"Regarding the pricing, setup costs, and licensing, I find that for some companies using Azure, they question why they should switch when they already have Microsoft Authenticator, which can make it commercially challenging when explaining why they need to transition to Cisco Duo."
"The product price needs improvement."
"It is easy to use when logging in, but at times, there's a delay in getting the pop-up on a phone, requiring users to occasionally retry authentication depending on backend services."
"The customer service is okay. However, the response time could be faster."
"Cisco Duo could benefit from improvements in certain areas that are important to us."
"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."
"Amazon Cognito’s UI needs improvement while onboarding new users."
"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."
"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."
"You need to evaluate the export users. The multifactor authentication, much less this room for improving the configuration setup of that."
"I think Amazon Cognito provides less flexibility to customize at the moment."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"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."
"F5 BIG-IP APM disconnects when you leave it for long enough, but that is natural for IT solutions to do. That's a little bit frustrating."
"In my opinion, the GUI side needs some improvement based on my usage. Sometimes, it doesn't work as efficiently as the CLI side."
"The stability of the F5 BIG-IP APM could be better."
"We do not have knowledgeable support teams locally."
"The main improvement needed for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is to integrate into the cloud-delivered services from F5."
"The initial setup was not easy."
"If I could copy and paste objects instead of picking and configuring them from scratch each time, it would be great."
"The solution’s GUI looks very old."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is very good because it does not cost a lot of money. It's affordable for all-sized customers, including enterprises. There is an additional cost for premium support."
"It's a bit confusing because we're on a three-year plan with a certain number of licenses, and we've gone over that number. They told us that when we renew, they will add all these licenses. We've expanded quickly, so everyone's kind of scared because no one knows what the bill is with the long pricing cycle."
"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."
"It was very reasonable."
"From a reseller perspective, it's still challenging to explain the whole license strategy to a client, so we really have to be ahead of that for all the true forward conversations."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"With regard to pricing, for a small business buying a one off, it's pretty expensive. If it's an enterprise that has thousands of employees, however, it's really nothing to protect your data because if your network goes down or it's breached, you're losing millions of dollars every minute. When it comes to a large enterprise, it's priced where it should be because you're talking business to business. You're not talking business to consumer."
"The product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"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."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"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 very expensive."
"Recently, they have simplified the licensing"
"The tool is a little bit expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Access Management solutions are best for your needs.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise82
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Du...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
Regarding the pricing, what actually happened was that we got the product purchased through our HQ, so the costing as...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
I do not have a straight answer for how Cisco Duo can be improved at this time. With the implementation that we are g...
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, speci...
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 ...
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 an...
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 purchas...
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 ...
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. ...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
F5 Access Policy Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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: September 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.