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Amazon Cognito vs Microsoft Entra ID 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
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
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 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Bahram Piri - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What is quite valuable is that we can outsource storage of the credentials to AWS, and they manage it quite securely."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"The federation is one of the most efficient features as the pricing is competitive."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."
"The solution is proto connective and integrates well with other AWS services."
"I rate Amazon Cognito nine out of ten."
"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 OTP validation and email validation."
"It has made our work easier in that it’s simplified everything for us."
"I would rate the support as ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to authenticate users using Microsoft Entra ID."
"I would rate the solution as 9. It is a very good solution for unified management."
"Azure is the leading market solution because of its history, features, and maturity."
"With Azure Active Directory we were able to manage with different options the access for different users."
"I would rate Microsoft Entra ID a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Entra ID is having a cloud-based identity, similar to Google's single sign-on."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in Amazon Cognito."
"The secure authentication of Amazon Cognito has benefited our company. We were previously using legacy signup systems."
"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)."
"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."
"You need to evaluate the export users. The multifactor authentication, much less this room for improving the configuration setup of that."
"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."
"In terms of stability, sometimes the more applications you integrate, the more it becomes a little bit unstable."
"From time to time it takes a little bit of time to replicate, with some of the applications—something like five to 10 minutes. I know that the design is not supposed to enable real-time replication with some of the applications. But, as an administrator, I would like to run a specific change or modification in Azure Active Directory and see it replicated almost immediately."
"The conditional access rules are a little limiting. There's greater scope for the variety of rules and conditions you could put in that rules around a more factual authentication for other users. If you have an Azure AD setup, you can then connect to other people's Azure AD, but you don't have a huge amount of control in terms of what you can do. Greater control over guest users and guest access would be better. It's pretty good as it is but that could be improved."
"Microsoft Entra ID's impact on access and identity management is relatively limited."
"The only improvement would be for everything to be instant in terms of applying changes and propagating them to systems."
"Active Directory could always be more secure. Right now, we've got two-factor authentications. All services based on Active Directory have a username and password. If somebody hacked our username, they could easily get all the data from our side. So I want two-factor authentication and a stronger password policy from Active Directory. The domain controllers should be more secure as well."
"Technical support could be better."
"Whatever business requirements we needed in the past three years, users were created, with the name of the user and they were not connected with the Active Directory. We were trying to in house in three years and with directory, but we were not able to achieve it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"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 Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"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 the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"We make sure that we only enable the licenses that are needed for the users, rather than enabling licenses in a blanket fashion."
"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."
"We are currently on the education plan, so the price is slightly better than the development plan."
"The solution was fairly priced the last time I checked the costs."
"The price of the solution was reasonable."
"Microsoft Entra ID service can be quite costly due to its hidden expenses linked to usage."
"It is in line. Because we are so early, we have not had to come back on a cycle where we are having to negotiate again."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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.
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?
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. Cog...
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...
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
862,289 professionals have used our research since 2012.