Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
8th
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
235
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 September 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 6.8%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 24.8%, up from 24.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Entra ID24.8%
Amazon Cognito6.8%
Other68.4%
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

"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."
"The multi-factor authentication setup has room for improvement."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"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 features most valuable to us are the ability to integrate with various IDPs and the capability to sync with multiple applications."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"I rate Amazon Cognito nine out of ten."
"The scalability is quite good."
"It's a quite comprehensive solution and it scales quite well within our required scale as well, which is very useful."
"The solution has a variety of tools. Two of the most valuable features are the ability to create users and to replicate the user account from on-premise to the cloud."
"Azure Active Directory provides us with identity-based authentication, which secures access at the user level and also integrates with conditional access policies and multi-factor authentication helping to increase the identity security for that person. So, the hacking and leaking of passwords is a secondary problem because you will not authenticate a person with one factor. There is a second factor of authentication available to increase the security premise for your company."
"It's not intuitive and we use it mainly for our Office 365 files. The integration between the two is interesting. However, the learning curve is high."
"It helps us with maintaining enterprise identities."
"We do not have to deploy lots of machines all over the place to run things as a service, which is how we like to deploy things, just as a service."
"It's definitely both stable and scalable."
 

Cons

"I believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"The setup and configuration can be complex, especially for advanced use cases."
"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."
"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."
"The secure authentication of Amazon Cognito has benefited our company. We were previously using legacy signup systems."
"There is no great solution in the cloud for Conditional Access authentication and RADIUS-type authentication."
"Azure AD does not support legacy authentication protocols, such as NTLM or Kerberos."
"The implementation of other third-party MFA such as Okta or Duo could be improved, even though Duo is integratable. The response from actual support tickets is a bit laggy, and I would like them to be more responsive."
"A recent incident we dealt with took four months to resolve with a seven-day deadline, which was quite frustrating."
"Microsoft Entra ID can be improved by having more resources for learning how to best use the tool and understanding best use case scenarios."
"Microsoft should work on enhancing its machine-learning algorithm to prevent unnecessary lockouts of users."
"Entra ID is not battle-tested or stable enough to support a business of our size. There are some design issues specifically around support for legacy services."
"There should be a clearer separation between objects held in Entra and Azure, so we don't need to approach the Entra ID team to create rules, policies, and app registrations. It would help if we could make independent IDs on the Azure side to go through that team to create a role, change permissions, or create something for a specific task."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"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 the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"The pricing of this solution is good compared to other solutions on the market."
"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 P1 version costs $6 per user per month."
"The product's price is in the midrange."
"The licensing model makes it difficult to understand the real cost of the solution, especially because it changes all the time."
"The price of the solution's license is good."
"Microsoft has a free version of Azure AD. So, if you don't do a lot of advanced features, then you can use the free version, which is no cost at all because it is underpinning Office 365. Because Microsoft gives it to you as a SaaS, so there are no infrastructure costs whatsoever that you need to incur. If you use the free version, then it is free. If you use the advanced features (that we use), it is a license fee per user."
"I'm not totally aware of the pricing and licensing, but I do know that the pricing and licensing must be quite balanced. We are a pretty old client of Microsoft, and MSA is just one of the services we use from Microsoft. There's a whole Microsoft 365 suite that's implemented as well. I'm sure it is something that is acceptable to both parties."
"Microsoft Entra ID service can be quite costly due to its hidden expenses linked to usage."
"Azure Active Directory is more expensive than Google, but the capabilities they provide are superior."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Access Management solutions are best for your needs.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise132
 

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: July 2025.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.