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Amazon Cognito vs Okta Workforce Identity 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
7th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Okta Workforce Identity
Ranking in Access Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Authentication Systems (5th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (6th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 6.5%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Workforce Identity is 11.4%, up from 9.6% 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.
Tor Nordhagen - PeerSpot reviewer
Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced
The drawback of this solution is that in our shops, many staff members sometimes have to be borrowed from one shop to another and the solution does not really support having multiple roles. The user experience we would like to have when a person works in shop A which pays their salary is that they should have access to pretty much everything. Maybe you have somebody who is a manager in that shop A, he should be able to order new wear, he should be able to change the pricing, he should be able to empty the cash registry, and ship it to the bank. But when for instance, in COVID, people had to fill in for people in shops where a lot of people were sick, then they had to actually use user accounts of people that work in shop B. If you were employed in shop A, you could not work in shop B without borrowing somebody else's user ID and password. Which is really bad. We haven't been able to work around that and Okta Workforce Identity does not have a solution for it. We are now piloting their identity governance solution. Obviously, it's easy to give somebody access, give them an account, and give them roles, but it's hard to maintain that. For example, if you moved from, say working in a shop to working in a warehouse. But why do you still have all this shop access? The solution has until now not had anything to really support the process of taking away access. But now we are in a better release program of Okta's identity governance solution. Although it's very basic, the solution has started on a journey, but identity governance is something that Okta Workforce Identity really needs to improve. The ability or the options in the solution for changing the look and feel are not good enough because in our partner portal, essentially what they have is an ugly admin interface. The admin interface is good enough for us technical people because that's all we need. We work with the product and we're able to see the data but when it comes to presenting the service portal, Okta Workforce Identity does not have any capabilities really for making it look pretty. To add branding and different graphical user interface elements than Okta basic for essentially delegated admin for the business-to-business portal is horrifying because you're essentially using the tech admin. The only option we had and used, was to take the tech admin console and strip it. so that a vendor that has some goods that are sold in the shops, when they want to add a user on their side, say a driver or a packer on their side who should know how much they've packed in a truck to come to our warehouse, then the user interface that this vendor is using, these functional people will then have to use an extremely basic user interface.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."
"What is quite valuable is that we can outsource storage of the credentials to AWS, and they manage it quite securely."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"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."
"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 provisioning functionality has been the most valuable. This solution has good performance, fast integration and is very responsive."
"My total rating for Okta is ten out of ten."
"The tool provides a single place of contact for managing users. We only need to manage users in Okta Workforce Identity, eliminating the need to duplicate efforts across different systems. For example, if a user needs to be decommissioned, we don't have to go through all the systems and cloud services; we delete the user in one place. This process is automated with our HR system for both organizations, simplifying user lifecycle management."
"The most valuable feature is the identity access authentication."
"We find the solution to be stable."
"Okta integrates well with other solutions. Once you have integrated an application into Okta and onboarded a user, they will be onboarded for just-in-time provisioning."
"One of the most beneficial features of the solution is the user provisioning and the de-provisioning feature."
"What I found most valuable in Okta Workforce Identity is that it worked together with VMware Workspace One, so there was this device check at the same time. My company used the trusted device method that enabled you to define that only the trusted devices including the Workspace One agent were able to access the applications directly without an additional authentication step."
 

Cons

"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."
"I believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles."
"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’s UI needs improvement while onboarding new users."
"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."
"You need to evaluate the export users. The multifactor authentication, much less this room for improving the configuration setup of that."
"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."
"The solution's user interface needs to be improved and made easy."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve the support system, they are too slow."
"Okta doesn't have a partial push. It pushes down the full profile schema for lifecycle management or provisioning."
"It can have more API integrations."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve provisioning it can be made simpler."
"We faced some challenges during the Okta Identity Workforce deployment. Integrating with AWS and other cloud services posed some limitations with federated options. For instance, features like automatic user addition from AWS to the tool were missing, requiring manual intervention. The API is limited compared to the manual configuration possible through the UI."
"It would be pricing, which is a tough one because it goes against Microsoft. A lot of companies say they're a Microsoft partner, and they get all their software for free. Okta is like a luxury product, and it's not the most affordable one. I would say if they could work on pricing, it would help. Other than that, they've done great strides in developing a product that is really good. The companies that do see the value tend to invest in it."
"Support could be a bit faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"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."
"This is an expensive solution but the security makes it worthwhile."
"The price of the solution is good."
"It is costly for large companies."
"The solution's pricing model could be better for SMBs."
"The price of this product could be lower."
"The price of Okta Workforce Identity is competitively priced. We pay annually for the use of the solution."
"The solution is not the cheapest but not the most expensive. They are in the middle rating."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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...
What do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta should have at least a local presense for countries that align with or comply with GDPR or data sovereignty, so there are no compliance or audit questions. There are integration issues with Of...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. Okta Workforce Identity and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.