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Amazon Cognito vs ForgeRock 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
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ForgeRock
Ranking in Access Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (13th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 4.3%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ForgeRock is 5.5%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon Cognito4.3%
ForgeRock5.5%
Other90.2%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Wojciech Doganowski - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect & PMO at AS TV Play Baltics/TV3 Group
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.
reviewer2802936 - PeerSpot reviewer
java full stack developer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Centralized access control has improved secure onboarding and supports strict compliance
I wish we had used ForgeRock's adaptive risk-based authentication, which allows dynamic adjustment of authentication requirements based on user behavior. This could have helped us further strengthen our security. Another hidden gem is the built-in support for custom authentication modules and scripting, which gives a great deal of flexibility to tailor authentication flows. The self-service capabilities for password resets and account recovery have been very helpful in reducing support overhead and improving user experience. Discovering and utilizing these features would have definitely made our integration even smoother and would have provided additional value for both our users and our security team. One area of improvement would be the user interface for policy and workflow configuration, which can become complex and sometimes unintuitive, especially for new administrators. A more streamlined and user-friendly UI would help reduce the learning curve. Enhanced out-of-the-box analytics and reporting would also be valuable, as our current options often require custom development or integration with external tools. While extensibility is a strength, documentation for advanced customizations and integrations could be more comprehensive and easier to follow. Improved support for seamless upgrades and backward compatibility would also help minimize downtime. In terms of performance, optimizing the platform for high concurrency environments would be beneficial, especially for organizations with large user bases or peak usage periods. Enhanced scalability features such as more granular or horizontal scaling options would provide better support for distributed deployments. For integrations, having more pre-built connectors and easy integration with modern cloud-native services would accelerate adoption. Improved monitoring and real-time health dashboards would help proactively identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Amazon Cognito was particularly helpful and clear to use."
"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 features of Amazon Cognito are the pre and post-token generation, and the different Cognito triggers. It has lots of functionality and flexibility."
"This is a scalable solution. If our app or general usage increases, this solution can support it."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."
"The multi-factor authentication setup has room for improvement."
"What is quite valuable is that we can outsource storage of the credentials to AWS, and they manage it quite securely."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the authentication for the consumers. The integration with other third-party applications is excellent."
"We have found the identity and access management tools in the solution to be particularly useful for our organization."
"The most valuable features of ForgeRock are social login and data protection."
"Even though we have very small business interests with them today, they see that we plan on growing drastically over the next two years. Therefore, we have excellent support and we are now at a point where we are not calling tech support. We pick up a phone and call the Account Manager and they'll get everything resolved for us. We don't have to queue along with everybody else and go through a long process."
"I like the intelligent authentication feature."
"Easy to customize and adaptable to any environment."
"Installation and configuration are pretty easy for ForgeRock OpenIDM."
"We used it to implement multi-factor authentication and to improve our security posture as well as reducing the potential for attacks."
 

Cons

"The setup and configuration can be complex, especially for advanced use cases."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"The ease and simplicity of integration could be improved when using this solution. When using Okta, scope is a single endpoint with a parameter as a scope. In the Cognito for each scope, there is a separate endpoint."
"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 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."
"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 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."
"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."
"I find that it's quite expensive for just an open-source system. Support is quite expensive."
"We're worried about the scaling. We're told it will be okay and there won't be issues, however, I'm not 100% convinced."
"I don't think ForgeRock directly supports integrations with Slack, making it an area where improvements are required."
"ForgeRock is an open source solution and is available to everyone but it is not freeware. If you need support, you need a subscription for ForgeRock. Many of its functionalities need to be built up with the help of a consultant."
"There are some areas I want ForgeRock to improve; these areas include policy configuration, documentation clarity, UI complexity, and debugging token flow."
"They should improve the solution by include reporting."
"The product's customization is a bit complicated."
"The solution could improve by adding more advertising and marketing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."
"The product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"The price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"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 pricing of the solution is fair but I do not have the full details."
"Its price is comparable to other products in the market."
"The license is purchased annually per user. However, you can negotiate if you are signing for a longer period of time. When comparing this solution to others on the market it is priced fair, it is not at the top of the price range or at the bottom end."
"We have multiple clients we are looking at right now. We are at a very small number, however, the idea and the goal is to grow. We are looking at about $100,000 and $50,000 a minimum a month cost. That'd be minimum maybe in a couple of years."
"ForgeRock is an expensive solution."
"It's a bit pricey and could be more competitive."
"ForgeRock's pricing is more competitive than other products."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis, but it also depends on the contract that you have with the vendor. They have multiple types of contracts. There are additional costs to the standard licensing fees. If you need some of the features, you have to pay more."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise17
 

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?
Branding could be improved. When you use the Amazon Cognito domain and have a panel to login the user, I would add more customization options, such as icons or customization to the modal window whi...
What do you like most about ForgeRock?
The most valuable features of ForgeRock are social login and data protection.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ForgeRock?
Our company was considering switching back to Keycloak from ForgeRock, so as to not pay any license fees. ForgeRock also supports M-PIN and biometric features that Keycloak does not provide. My com...
What needs improvement with ForgeRock?
In the past, I saw that Splunk was integrated with a testing portal, and then it was integrated with Slack. I don't think ForgeRock directly supports integrations with Slack, making it an area wher...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ForgeRock Identity Platform, ForgeRock OpenIDM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Geico, Thomson Reuters, Salesforce, McKesson, Trinet, SKY, BNP Paribas, Deloitte, Capgemini, North Western University
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. ForgeRock and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,260 professionals have used our research since 2012.