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Amazon Cognito vs Microsoft Entra ID 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

Amazon Cognito
Ranking in Access Management
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Access Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
277
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), 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 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 2.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 10.7%, down from 23.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID10.7%
Amazon Cognito2.4%
Other86.9%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Stafin Jacob - PeerSpot reviewer
Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Practice Lead at Invoke
Identity has become our central gatekeeper and has provided secure single sign-on for all users
Microsoft Entra ID can improve by focusing more on new passwordless methods and becoming a primary adopter. One feature we would like to see is the ability to have security questions for password resets. I know the current capability is phasing out, so we do not have an alternative method yet. Customers who already use security questions require a smoother transition for that capability to be available. My experience with the deployment has had some challenges, particularly around the Microsoft MFA campaigns. The hardest part is moving users from a different MFA provider to the Microsoft MFA provider, as it ultimately depends on user activity. In large enterprises with numerous users across various geographies, this transition takes time. If there are ways to exert more control around that process, it would improve the situation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"I would recommend Cognito for users who are already AWS customers."
"The solution is proto connective and integrates well with other AWS services."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"Amazon Cognito was particularly helpful and clear to use."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"Conditional access is a very important feature where a specific user can be restricted such that they cannot connect to the application if they travel outside of the US."
"Azure Active Directory has many automation capabilities, and you can apply policies on top. You can do a lot of things with these combinations and integrate other tools like PingFederate."
"Single sign-on is the reason we use AD."
"Microsoft Entra ID makes work easier; compared to competitors, it is easier to use, easier to navigate, and more customizable, which makes it a better choice."
"Configuring the domain and setting it up in the Azure portal is just three clicks to be honest."
"Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has improved our customers' security posture."
"I like how Entra allows you to upload a CSV file with user details for bulk user creation. This is useful for automation. Entra has made it easy to manage identity and access by integrating with all Microsoft services. Everything is managed in a single place, eliminating the need for another application."
"It definitely has improved our security posture, certainly from providing that second factor of authentication, and it enhanced our end user experience quite a bit by giving them self-service password reset and a single sign-on experience instead of having to remember multiple usernames and passwords for different systems."
 

Cons

"You need to evaluate the export users. The multifactor authentication, much less this room for improving the configuration setup of that."
"I think Amazon Cognito provides less flexibility to customize at the moment."
"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."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"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 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."
"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."
"The secure authentication of Amazon Cognito has benefited our company. We were previously using legacy signup systems."
"It would be awesome to have a feature where you can see the permissions of a user in all their Azure subscriptions. Right now, you have to select a user, then you have to select the subscription to see which permissions the user has in their selected subscriptions. Sometimes, you just want to know, "Does that user have any permissions in any subscriptions?" That would be awesome if that would be available via the portal."
"Many people believe that the Azure Active Directory is overly complicated and antiquated."
"One thing that bothers me about Azure AD is that I can't specify login hours. I have to use an on-premises instance of Active Directory if I want to specify the hours during which a user can log in. For example, if I want to restrict login to only be possible during working hours, to prevent overtime payments or to prevent lawsuits, I can't do this using only Azure AD."
"The solution has certain limitations. For example, it has very little governance functionality."
"In Africa, we do not have the same bandwidth with internet speed. This slows the connectivity and it provides challenges for our business."
"The primary thing I would prioritize if we could do this again is the ability to keep a SAM account name instead of having to use a UPN. This causes considerable challenges for us as a customer because we have to reissue identities to everybody."
"If somebody is using an IdP or an identity solution other than Active Directory, that's where you have to start jumping through some hoops... I don't think the solution is quite as third-party-centric as Okta or Auth0."
"To look at more documentation, engineering, or an open standard would be nice."
 

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 product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."
"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 pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"There are four different levels of subscription including the free level, one that includes the Office 365 applications, the Premium 1 (P1) level, and the Premium 2 (P2) level."
"Microsoft Azure AD has P1 or P2 licensing options, and it depends on the customer's needs. To use Conditional Access, you need to have the P1 license, and to use the PIN features, you need the P2 license."
"Azure Active Directory is more expensive than Google, but the capabilities they provide are superior."
"Active Directory is bundled with a package of Microsoft services, so it doesn't cost much. I don't know about the individual license of Active Directory."
"Most features of Entra ID are part of Microsoft's ecosystem and included in Microsoft 365 bundles, which means there are no additional costs associated with pricing and licensing."
"It is worth the money."
"Its price is okay. It is easy to go from P1 to P2 license. It is not exactly a bargain, but I would recommend the P2 license."
"We have a yearly license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise162
 

Questions from the Community

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, specifically the DevOps teams. As far as I know, it is based on how many users we hav...
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 services, so it does not provide customization according to what the client need...
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 and a half years, where TLG Apps is a FinTech company in the UK. We were working f...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
I would rate the pricing of the product as four out of five. The product is definitely good, and I see it as part of the future roadmap for managing all endpoints.
What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?
I believe instead of putting everything in a single form under Microsoft Entra ID, it would be best for Microsoft to segregate these features. For example, if someone wants to design the Conditiona...
 

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: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.