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Amazon Cognito vs IBM Security Verify Access comparison

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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
6.6
Number of Reviews
176
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
IBM Security Verify Access
Ranking in Access Management
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (14th), Identity Management (IM) (20th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (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 IBM Security Verify Access is 3.3%, down from 3.5% 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%
IBM Security Verify Access3.3%
Other91.0%
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.
Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
Has improved secure user access while managing development through multiple technologies
I have already explained this in my previous call; I don't handle financial terms and commercials. Pricing is generally managed by functional teams and management looking after licensing matters. In Pakistan, vendors such as Oracle and IBM manage account relationships with clients and have tailored pricing models, so I do not have sufficient insights into that aspect.IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based. The complexity and scalability of the architecture necessitate in-depth technical knowledge and understanding of the system. Thus, installation is not as simple as clicking through; it requires extensive configuration of the underlying application servers, such as IBM WebSphere, where these products are deployed and configured.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a good solution for hybrid environments and VPN."
"Duo features benefit my company by making logins more secure and simpler. Everything is in one box, so we don't have multiple servers trying to do the same thing."
"Cisco Duo is a simple and effective tool that gives detailed information about users who connect to your domain."
"The integration with Azure Active Directory and the AWS cloud is amazing, as most products nowadays require the creation of a customized integration. With Duo Security, it was more like native integration, and it took me five minutes to register."
"My overall rating for the solution is ten out of ten."
"My advice for other companies that are considering getting Cisco Duo is to try it, and you will be amazed at how easy and how productive this tool is."
"The two-factor login is great. I receive a message and just have to press okay."
"The features of Cisco Duo that I like the most are the simplicity, and the benefits of these features to my organization include security components and security authentication components."
"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."
"I rate Amazon Cognito nine out of ten."
"I would recommend Cognito for users who are already AWS customers."
"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."
"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."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"IBM Security Access Manager is a very good solution, so my company is still using it."
"I have found this solution to be really practical and when a user wants to log in, it is effortless and runs smooth."
"Its stability and UI are most valuable."
"The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via email or SMS. This ensures secure access to your accounts by providing multiple authentication options."
"It can do a lot of different functions, and different types of teams can use this product for a variety of use cases, such as RSA, OTP, and single sign-on functionalities."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Security Access Manager, at least for my company, is multi-factor authentication. That's the only feature my company is using. The solution works well and has no glitches. IBM Security Access Manager is a very good solution, so my company is still using it."
"From the integration point of view, it supports SAML, OIDC, and OAuth; for legacy applications that don't have support for SAML and other new protocols, it provides single sign-on access to end-users, and from the integration compatibility point of view, it is highly capable."
"It's a good solution for identification and access management."
 

Cons

"Regarding the stability and reliability of the Cisco Duo solution, we have experienced some outages over the last few years that are significant because people can't log in."
"When you come to the push in Duo Security, there are some integrations where you have to use the code instead of the push functionality."
"I would like to see Duo Security increase the time that the users have to log into the devices. The maximum time interval is 50 minutes at the moment, and I would like it to be 60 minutes. When you try to log into a device and have to authenticate yourself, sometimes it's not very pleasant. It's not the best thing particularly if you have to do this every 50 minutes, which is the maximum time that Duo gives. This makes it difficult to use and does not save time."
"We had some trouble with the password reset function."
"We have a 24 hour timer for our Duo cookie and we would like to reduce this to a shorter time when using Duo."
"I rate it a nine because there is still a specific feature regarding Cisco Duo Desktop that must be enabled and optimized better than the current situation."
"Cisco Duo can be improved by exploring a way to make it a more seamless integration and by deploying an in-house server."
"I think that the dashboard needs to be improved."
"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."
"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 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, but in Cognito, for each scope, there is a separate endpoint."
"I think Amazon Cognito provides less flexibility to customize at the moment."
"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."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"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."
"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 we'd like improved in IBM Security Access Manager is its onboarding process as it's complex, particularly when onboarding new applications."
"They can improve the single sign-on configuration for OIDC and OAuth. That is not very mature in this product, and they can improve it in this particular area."
"For small or medium-sized businesses they cannot afford this solution."
"The solution could be classified as a hilt system. There are a lot of resources being used and it is suitable for very large enterprises or the public sector."
"What we'd like improved in IBM Security Access Manager is its onboarding process as it's complex, particularly when onboarding new applications. We need to be very, very careful during the onboarding. We have no issues with IBM Security Access Manager because the solution works fine, apart from the onboarding process and IBM's involvement in onboarding issues. If we need support related to the onboarding, we've noticed a pattern where support isn't available, or they don't have much experience, or we're not getting a response from them. We're facing the same issue with IBM Guardium. As we're just focusing on the multi-factor authentication feature of IBM Security Access Manager and we didn't explore any other features, we don't have additional features to suggest for the next release of the solution, but we're in discussion about exploring ID management and access management features, but those are just possibilities because right now, we're focused on exploring our domain."
"The user interface for users and administrators could be improved to make it easier. Automating some functions could also be beneficial."
"The user interface needs to be simplified, it's complex and not user-friendly."
"IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Duo has been great. We've been there for 10 years. While we haven't gone through the setup part for a while, licensing is straightforward and convenient for higher education because student populations are included. So, we don't have to pay extra for it. We just pay for our knowledge workers, which has been great, and the cost is reasonable."
"Duo Security's pricing is good, fair, and very comparable to today's market."
"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."
"Their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing costs."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"It has a fair pricing model. I know they have different tiers, but it would be nice to have different types of licenses for certain groups of users in our organization. That way, we wouldn't have to lump everybody into one group. That would be also one complaint."
"Cisco's licensing is always a bit complicated to understand, but the price is fair. It could be more expensive than others, but the way they integrate everything, it has a fair price."
"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"The pricing of this solution is good compared to other solutions on the market."
"The price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is expensive. We are on an annual subscription."
"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."
"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 product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"The product is not expensive. It depends on the number of users."
"The license and costs depend on the amount range of users you have. For just approximately 2,000 users, the price is practical and fair. However, when you have 20,000 users, it starts to become really expensive, and the discount per user is not attractive enough to go ahead and purchase."
"It costs about 300K AED for a year. Its pricing is a bit on the higher end, but in comparison to other products in the market, its price is still better. There are lots of other products that are very costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise93
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

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 needs improvement with IBM Security Access Manager?
I have already explained this in my previous call; I don't handle financial terms and commercials. Pricing is gen...
What is your primary use case for IBM Security Access Manager?
We are still using the IBM BPM platform to automate the processes for our organization.I generally use Microsoft Proj...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Security Access Manager?
My current domain is leading project development, overseeing both technical and functional areas in process automatio...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
IBM Security Verify Access (SVA), IBM Security Access Manager, ISAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
POST Luxembourg
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. IBM Security Verify Access and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
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