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AWS Identity and Access Management vs ForgeRock comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.8
AWS IAM boosts productivity with automation, efficient access, scalability, and security, offering significant ROI despite some cost drawbacks.
Sentiment score
5.2
ForgeRock enhanced market efficiency, security, and customer trust, reducing staffing needs and improving time to market without exact ROI figures.
I believe AWS provides significant ROI by reducing infrastructure costs and improving scalability and business agility.
AWS Solutions Architect at TechBiz Global
AWS Identity and Access Management ensures security and allows for scalable application deployment.
AWS cloud operations manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
It saves time by not requiring extensive manual setup.
Full-stack Developer / AWS Architect at Mantiqh Technologies
On a B2B level, it opened up the market for TomTom to sell its services in a more efficient way to car companies.
Principal Consultant at Road2Value
We can use a Linux image from ForgeRock with different systems, applications, websites, and mobile apps to create various types of access for users.
Assistant Architect at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
I can definitely see that fewer employees are needed compared to using different SaaS applications.
Identity and Access Management Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.7
AWS Identity and Access Management is intuitive; most users manage internally, avoiding paid tech support and using documentation.
Sentiment score
5.8
ForgeRock customer service is flexible and responsive, but improvements are needed for professional services and ticket resolution speed.
Responses from AWS engineers aren't always direct, so when urgent issues occur, I manage them immediately and prioritize solutions.
AWS Solutions Architect at TechBiz Global
The service is straightforward, and I haven't encountered much complexity.
Senior Engineer AWS DevOps at Tiger Analytics
We haven't needed to contact technical support as the IAM tool is intuitive and configured on our end.
Full-stack Developer / AWS Architect at Mantiqh Technologies
The support portals offer comprehensive documentation, troubleshooting guides, and community forums that have been helpful for resolving common issues independently.
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
For standard support tickets, response times were very decent, and the support team was helpful in identifying configuration issues, especially with authentication trees, token settings, and directory replications.
Identity and Access Management Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees
The customer support is very flexible and supportive, particularly in the area of automation and customer deployments.
Cybersecurity Consultant at CyberBackbone
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.1
AWS IAM is scalable and integrates well but needs improved centralized permissions and auto-scaling for large organizations.
Sentiment score
7.3
ForgeRock offers scalable solutions for diverse enterprises, supporting seamless expansion, efficient administration, and integration across multiple environments.
Scalability in AWS is significantly easier compared to on-premise solutions.
Lead Admin Systems at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I implemented centralized and scalable solutions to improve larger setups.
AWS Solutions Architect at TechBiz Global
The system's scalability could be enhanced to support larger organizations and better integrate with existing applications.
AWS Engineer at Unemployed
The access management layer is stateless, so I can scale horizontally by adding more nodes behind a load balancer as traffic increases.
Identity and Access Management Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees
The platform provides flexible authentication trees, enabling us to design custom MFA flows tailored for different user groups and risk profiles.
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
We scaled up with ForgeRock. My team received an award for implementing it for a 60 million customer base, which was the largest implementation at that time.
Principal Consultant at Road2Value
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
AWS Identity and Access Management is highly stable, securing networks effectively, with minor performance issues quickly resolved.
Sentiment score
7.3
ForgeRock is stable and reliable, though customization affects stability, with users rating it seven to nine out of ten.
It was initially tough to identify the cause, yet by simplifying user management and utilizing group roles, I have managed to solve these issues.
AWS Solutions Architect at TechBiz Global
AWS Identity and Access Management is designed to keep networks secure by ensuring only authorized users can access necessary data.
AWS Engineer at Unemployed
AWS Identity and Access Management is very stable.
AWS cloud operations manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
ForgeRock supports integration with legacy systems in our organization by offering a wide range of connectors and APIs.
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
ForgeRock is very stable because it manages access, authentication, and authorization effectively.
Assistant Architect at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

AWS IAM needs a user-friendly interface, better permissions, scalable integration, and improved tracking for enhanced security and efficiency.
ForgeRock users suggest improving documentation, UI, DevOps support, onboarding, and training for better customization and admin experience.
If AWS could provide an option to automatically create templates based on desired access requirements, it would be extremely beneficial, especially for documentation and troubleshooting purposes.
Lead Admin Systems at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
AWS Identity and Access Management needs improvement in the prevention of unauthorized access to sensitive data and models.
AWS Solutions Architect at TechBiz Global
The user activity tracking in AWS Identity and Access Management should be enhanced to provide detailed descriptions of user activities.
AWS cloud operations manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
ForgeRock needs to focus on low-code, no-code solutions that allow for drag-and-drop functionality with good orchestration.
CIAM Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It would be better if they were available for support whenever the customer needs it, especially during migration or go-live time periods.
IAM Solution Architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
The main area is complexity. ForgeRock is extremely flexible, but the learning curve can be steep.
Identity and Access Management Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

AWS IAM offers free access management, though cost comparisons with Azure can influence decision-making for some users.
ForgeRock offers flexible pricing with community and enterprise options, seen as fair, supporting various features and open-source choices.
Initial setups do not require significant capital expenditures, making it advantageous for organizations to utilize AWS services.
AWS Solutions Architect at TechBiz Global
Azure is often chosen for cost-efficiency.
Senior Engineer AWS DevOps at Tiger Analytics
While it offers good value for money, a reduction in costs would be appreciated by any organization.
AWS cloud operations manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing are very straightforward, which is a good success.
Cybersecurity Consultant at CyberBackbone
One has to spend considerable time trying to understand the different modules and different needs for those modules on the licensing front.
Principal Consultant at Road2Value
 

Valuable Features

AWS Identity and Access Management enhances security and efficiency with multifactor authentication, customizable policies, and streamlined role-based access control.
ForgeRock offers flexible authentication, scalability, and DevOps support with strong API integration, enhancing security and operational efficiency.
The solution enables differentiation in tasks, such as managing cross-account access, setting service roles, and integrating corporate directories for temporary AWS access.
AWS Solutions Architect at TechBiz Global
Its role-based access control enhances security by allowing me to assign specific permissions to users, which helps in managing access and maintaining cost control.
AWS cloud operations manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Specific permissions can be given to users, allowing tailored access to instances and S3 buckets.
AWS Engineer at Unemployed
Centralized management makes the biggest difference because it allows us to define, update, and enforce security and compliance rules from a single location.
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
ForgeRock positively impacts our organization as we manage a large number of users with ease, providing a standard IAM solution that simplifies our processes.
CIAM Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
ForgeRock has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to migrate from the older system to the newer ForgeRock component, enabling us to go live with many products across geographies, enhancing security as it is all cloud-based, and with the company taking care of availability, it has reduced costs for the company.
IAM CONSULTANT at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Identity and Access Man...
Ranking in Identity Management (IM)
8th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Resource Access Management (2nd)
ForgeRock
Ranking in Identity Management (IM)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Access Management (7th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Identity Management (IM) category, the mindshare of AWS Identity and Access Management is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ForgeRock is 3.7%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity Management (IM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ForgeRock3.7%
AWS Identity and Access Management0.8%
Other95.5%
Identity Management (IM)
 

Featured Reviews

SumitMundik - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Admin Systems at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
IAM improves cloud security management with hybrid network capabilities and global role access
In AWS Identity and Access Management solutions, CloudFormation tools are used to create templates. Having predefined templates available from the AWS team would be beneficial. Currently, security teams work on policies and scripts for creating generic AWS Identity and Access Management roles. If AWS could provide an option to automatically create templates based on desired access requirements, it would be extremely beneficial, especially for documentation and troubleshooting purposes. Storage gateway creation has limitations, allowing maximum of 50 SMB file shares per gateway. While it is costly to access S3 buckets via AWS Identity and Access Management role through storage gateway, companies invest in this for enhanced data security, particularly in financial sectors where data integrity is crucial. There is an ongoing issue where files are sometimes sent twice to S3 buckets, despite MoveIt logs showing single transmission. As a workaround, Lambda functions are implemented with a five-minute delay before processing files to downstream applications.
SR
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Centralized access control has improved secure onboarding and supports strict compliance
I wish we had used ForgeRock's adaptive risk-based authentication, which allows dynamic adjustment of authentication requirements based on user behavior. This could have helped us further strengthen our security. Another hidden gem is the built-in support for custom authentication modules and scripting, which gives a great deal of flexibility to tailor authentication flows. The self-service capabilities for password resets and account recovery have been very helpful in reducing support overhead and improving user experience. Discovering and utilizing these features would have definitely made our integration even smoother and would have provided additional value for both our users and our security team. One area of improvement would be the user interface for policy and workflow configuration, which can become complex and sometimes unintuitive, especially for new administrators. A more streamlined and user-friendly UI would help reduce the learning curve. Enhanced out-of-the-box analytics and reporting would also be valuable, as our current options often require custom development or integration with external tools. While extensibility is a strength, documentation for advanced customizations and integrations could be more comprehensive and easier to follow. Improved support for seamless upgrades and backward compatibility would also help minimize downtime. In terms of performance, optimizing the platform for high concurrency environments would be beneficial, especially for organizations with large user bases or peak usage periods. Enhanced scalability features such as more granular or horizontal scaling options would provide better support for distributed deployments. For integrations, having more pre-built connectors and easy integration with modern cloud-native services would accelerate adoption. Improved monitoring and real-time health dashboards would help proactively identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with AWS Identity and Access Management?
In AWS Identity and Access Management solutions, CloudFormation tools are used to create templates. Having predefined templates available from the AWS team would be beneficial. Currently, security ...
What is your primary use case for AWS Identity and Access Management?
When attempting to access Windows UNC paths from MoveIt, it will request user ID and access. For instance, if ITS-MoveIt is the local user utilized during installation, that particular user should ...
What advice do you have for others considering AWS Identity and Access Management?
The AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer is not utilized in our implementation. The policy simulator feature is also not being used. Information about the pricing aspect of AWS Identi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ForgeRock?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing are very straightforward, which is a good success. I appreciate that it is very straightforward and helpful.
What needs improvement with ForgeRock?
I wish the JavaScript part could be improved, as not everyone is proficient in JavaScript, so automating that or reducing the reliance on it could be beneficial. Additionally, having only one realm...
What is your primary use case for ForgeRock?
My main use case for ForgeRock is designing user journeys, specifically customer user journeys, and how they interact with the system. A specific example of a user journey I designed using ForgeRoc...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ForgeRock Identity Platform, ForgeRock OpenIDM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Amazon.com2. Adobe3. Accenture4. AT&T5. Bank of America6. Cisco Systems7. Coca-Cola8. Dell Technologies9. Equinix10. GE Healthcare11. Google12. Hewlett Packard Enterprise13. IBM14. Intel15. JPMorgan Chase16. Kroger17. LinkedIn18. Lockheed Martin19. Mastercard20. Microsoft21. Netflix22. Nike23. Oracle24. PayPal25. PwC26. SAP27. Siemens28. Spotify29. Tesla30. Toyota31. Visa32. Walmart33. World Bank
Geico, Thomson Reuters, Salesforce, McKesson, Trinet, SKY, BNP Paribas, Deloitte, Capgemini, North Western University
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Identity and Access Management vs. ForgeRock and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.