Amazon Cognito vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Access Management category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.6, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 7.0% mindshare in AM, compared to Microsoft’s 26.8% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Amazon Cognito

Read 15 Amazon Cognito reviews

1,948 Views
1,831 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Microsoft Entra ID

Read 234 Microsoft Entra ID reviews

25,521 Views
7,146 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Amazon Cognito

Microsoft Entra ID

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

Microsoft Entra ID and Amazon Cognito are prominent identity and access management solutions. Users are happier with the integrations and advanced security features of Amazon Cognito, although Microsoft Entra ID excels in ease of deployment and customer service.

Features: Microsoft Entra ID users value its seamless integration with other Microsoft services and its multi-factor authentication features. Amazon Cognito is appreciated for its robust security features and user management capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Entra ID users have noted a desire for more customization options and improved analytics. Amazon Cognito users seek better documentation and a more intuitive setup process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Entra ID is praised for its straightforward deployment and excellent customer service. Amazon Cognito, while powerful, is sometimes viewed as complex to set up, and users report mixed experiences with customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Entra ID users find the setup cost reasonable and report solid ROI due to its seamless integration with existing Microsoft solutions. Amazon Cognito users feel the pricing reflects its advanced features, despite higher initial setup costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Cognito vs. Microsoft Entra ID Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Cognito vs. Microsoft Entra ID

June 2025

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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

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Entra ID

Ranking in Access Management

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

234

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 7.0%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 26.8%, up from 23.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Access Management

Featured Reviews

Wojciech Doganowski

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.

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Bahram Piri

Chief Executive Officer & Founder at IDmelon Technologies

Security focus and seamless implementation increase platform productivity

Microsoft Entra ID can be improved in many ways, and there's a big wish list.If we're focusing on security, something that I definitely expect is improvement in the UI and UX for frontline workers. This is important, especially for non-tech savvy individuals. It is something Microsoft Entra ID could do to improve for a wider audience. It's important to focus on the frontline workers since they are non-tech savvy individuals. They are not like those back-office engineering C-level employees who are constantly dealing with computers, and we need to build a specific user experience and user interface for them to handle this stuff. That's something I expect Microsoft to focus on more for Microsoft Entra ID.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features most valuable to us are the ability to integrate with various IDPs and the capability to sync with multiple applications."

"This is a scalable solution. If our app or general usage increases, this solution can support it."

"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."

"Cognito speeds up our development and saves us time."

"The multi-factor authentication setup has room for improvement."

"The solution is proto connective and integrates well with other AWS services."

"One of the key benefits of this software is its ease of integration with a wide range of applications, including mobile apps and web applications. This simplifies the process of integration, and it can be seamlessly incorporated with Azure, Kubernetes, and other software systems."

"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."

More Amazon Cognito pros

"It's a very intuitive platform. It's easy to create groups and add people."

"Privileged Identity Management (PIM), managed identities, dynamic groups, and extension and security attributes are all great features."

"Azure Active Directory features have helped improve our security posture. The remote working has been a massive help during the pandemic."

"Microsoft Authenticator is highly secure."

"It's pretty easy to implement."

"Conditional Access, Geofencing, and Azure Multi-Factor Authentication are the major security features to secure resources."

"Entra's conditional access policies allow us to fine-tune how we allow people into the environments and secure them."

"Federated identity management is a great feature for the zero-trust model."

More Microsoft Entra ID pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."

"The secure authentication of Amazon Cognito has benefited our company. We were previously using legacy signup systems."

"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."

"There is room for improvement in Amazon Cognito."

"Amazon Cognito could be improved by making it easier for us to add more data to the token, allowing customization of JWT."

"I believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles."

More Amazon Cognito cons

"In my opinion, Microsoft sometimes releases products too early without providing enough documentation. Our team works with innovative solutions like verified ID, identity governance ,and lifecycle workflow. When we started with lifecycle workflows, we had only two integrated worklows. Still, we couldn't find much of the information we needed in the documentation about our use case or how to leverage IDs in our proof of concept."

"The cost is one area that needs improvement."

"The most challenging aspect I found was the creation of organizational units and specific domains. They have a tool called Bastion, which is expensive and a little bit confusing."

"Better deployment management and visibility functionality would be helpful."

"The licensing cost is a bit prohibitive."

"Tech support is inconsistent."

"Microsoft often changes settings, and many features are scattered."

"The custom role creation function could be improved as it's somewhat tricky to use."

More Microsoft Entra ID cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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 price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."

"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 pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."

"Azure Active Directory is expensive."

"We pay about $35 per user."

"I do not have experience with pricing."

"We don't really have a choice. It's the one shop in town. If you want this, you have to pay for it."

"Microsoft is so expensive. You know it is expensive when a Fortune 100 company like ours is complaining about the cost. That has been a big thing for me. When I really want to use an Azure service, it is very hard for me to justify the cost, especially with Microsoft support."

"The process for buying licenses from Microsoft is somewhat messy and really hard to do. We have to talk to someone because it's hard to find out how many licenses we need. If I'm applying for 2,000 users, how many Windows licenses do we need? They could also charge less for support."

"I think the pricing is efficient, but the licensing is overly complicated and difficult to understand. There are many tricks in the licensing that weigh against us."

"We are working with the Premium P2 licenses, which are reasonable. If you invest in the on-premises environment setup, then it costs so much. However, on-prem AD gives you the ability to manage your organization in a very organized manner, where you can create a group policy."

More Microsoft Entra ID pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Cognito?

The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon Cognito?

See all answers

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 Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...

See all answers

What do you like most about Azure Active Directory?

It is very simple. The Active Directory functions are very easy for us. Its integration with anything is very easy. We can easily do third-party multifactor authentication.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?

Our experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Entra ID involves leveraging Microsoft 365 E5 licensing, so it's included. Being included in Microsoft licensing makes it mu...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 11% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Amazon Cognito

Compared 9% of the time

ForgeRock vs Amazon Cognito

Compared 4% of the time

Ping Identity Platform vs Amazon Cognito

Compared 3% of the time

Okta Workforce Identity vs Amazon Cognito

Compared 3% of the time

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Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Intune vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 9% of the time

Okta Workforce Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 6% of the time

Auth0 vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 6% of the time

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Entra ID Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Cognito

July 2025

Download Amazon Cognito product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID

July 2025

Download Microsoft Entra ID product report

Also Known As

No data available

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Microsoft

Overview

Amazon Cognito is a simple user identity and data synchronization service that helps you securely manage and synchronize app data for your users across their mobile devices. You can create unique identities for your users through a number of public login providers (Amazon, Facebook, and Google) and also support unauthenticated guests. You can save app data locally on users’ devices allowing your applications to work even when the devices are offline. With Amazon Cognito, you can save any kind of data in the AWS Cloud, such as app preferences or game state, without writing any backend code or managing any infrastructure. This means you can focus on creating great app experiences instead of having to worry about building and managing a backend solution to handle identity management, network state, storage, and sync.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Microsoft Entra ID is used for extending on-premises Active Directory to the cloud, managing application access, enabling multi-factor authentication, and single sign-on. It facilitates policy enforcement and secure access, ensuring centralized identity management across cloud and on-premises resources.

Organizations utilize Microsoft Entra ID for robust user and group management, identity synchronization, and conditional access. Its seamless integration with third-party apps, scalability, and support for remote work make it a preferred choice. The admin center streamlines identity and access tasks, enhancing efficiency and security with features like privileged identity management and audit logs.

What are the key features of Microsoft Entra ID?

Single Sign-On: Simplifies user access to multiple applications with one login.
Multifactor Authentication: Enhances security by requiring additional verification.
Conditional Access: Establishes policies that determine how users' access cloud apps.
Integration: Easily integrates with various third-party applications.
User Identity Protection: Safeguards user identities from threats.
Privileged Identity Management: Manages elevated access to sensitive resources.
Audit Logs: Provides thorough activity logs for oversight and compliance.

What benefits should users look for in Microsoft Entra ID reviews?

Enhanced Security: Offers strong multifactor authentication and identity protection.
Administrative Efficiency: Simplifies identity and access management tasks.
Scalability: Supports growing user bases and remote work environments.
Integration Capabilities: Compatible with numerous third-party applications.
User-Friendly Interface: Makes managing user identities straightforward.

Microsoft Entra ID implementation varies across industries. Tech firms leverage it for secure, scalable access management, while healthcare organizations utilize its identity protection features to safeguard patient data. Educational institutions adopt Entra ID for streamlined user management and policy enforcement, ensuring secure access for students and staff across on-premises and cloud resources.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Cognito vs. Microsoft Entra ID

June 2025

Free Report: Amazon Cognito vs. Microsoft Entra ID

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