Amazon Cognito vs Azure Active Directory

Overview

Amazon Cognito

Stacks616

Followers917

Votes34

Azure Active Directory

Stacks697

Followers283

Votes6

Amazon Cognito vs Azure Active Directory: What are the differences?

Authentication and Authorization Model: The key difference between Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory lies in their authentication and authorization models. Amazon Cognito provides a user pool feature that supports authentication and identity management for web and mobile applications. It allows developers to easily authenticate users using social identity providers, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon. On the other hand, Azure Active Directory is a comprehensive identity and access management solution that primarily focuses on enterprise-level authentication and authorization. It provides features like single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and role-based access control (RBAC) to enable secure access to various resources.
Scalability and Availability: When it comes to scalability and availability, Amazon Cognito has an advantage over Azure Active Directory. Amazon Cognito is built on AWS infrastructure, which is known for its scalability and high availability. It can automatically scale to accommodate a large number of users and provides built-in fault tolerance. In contrast, Azure Active Directory may have limitations in terms of scalability and availability, especially for organizations with a significant number of users or complex requirements.
Integration with AWS Services vs. Microsoft Services: Another key difference is the integration capabilities of Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory with their respective cloud ecosystems. Amazon Cognito seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, and Amazon API Gateway, allowing developers to build end-to-end solutions using a wide range of AWS tools. On the other hand, Azure Active Directory has strong integration with Microsoft services like Azure App Service, Office 365, and Microsoft Graph API, providing a cohesive experience for organizations heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Pricing Model: The pricing models of Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory also differ. Amazon Cognito offers a free tier for up to 50,000 monthly active users in the user pool, with additional charges for authentication and data synchronization. Azure Active Directory comes with different pricing tiers depending on the features and capabilities required by the organization. The pricing is based on per-user and per-application basis, with additional charges for premium features like SSO and MFA.
Supported Platforms and Protocols: When it comes to supported platforms and protocols, Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory have different focuses. Amazon Cognito primarily targets web and mobile applications, providing SDKs for various platforms like iOS, Android, JavaScript, and React Native. It supports popular standard authentication protocols like OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0. Azure Active Directory, on the other hand, provides broader support for various platforms, including web, mobile, and desktop applications. It also supports a wide range of authentication protocols like SAML, WS-Federation, and OAuth.
Customization and Extensibility: Both Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory offer customization and extensibility options, but with different areas of focus. Amazon Cognito allows developers to customize the user interface of the authentication flow to match the application's branding. It also supports custom authentication flows using Lambda triggers. Azure Active Directory, on the other hand, provides extensive customization options for user attributes and claims mapping. It also supports custom policies for fine-grained control over authentication and authorization behavior.

In Summary, Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory differ in their authentication and authorization models, scalability and availability, integration capabilities, pricing models, supported platforms and protocols, as well as customization and extensibility options.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs

CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Amazon Cognito, Azure Active Directory

Brent

CEO at DEFY Labs

Mar 7, 2020

Decided

I started our team on Amazon Cognito because I was a Solutions Architect at AWS and found it really easy to follow the tutorials and get a basic app up and running with it.

When our team started working with it, they very quickly became frustrated because of the poor documentation. After 4 days of trying to get all the basic passwordless auth working, our lead engineer made the decision to abandon it and try Auth0... and managed to get everything implemented in 4 hours.

The consensus was that Cognito just isn't mature enough or well-documented, and that the implementation does not cater for real world use cases the way that it should. I believe Amplify has made some of this simpler, but I would still recommend Auth0 as it's been bulletproof for us, and is a sensible price.

297k views297k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Amazon Cognito	Azure Active Directory
You can create unique identities for your users through a number of public login providers (Amazon, Facebook, and Google) and also support unauthenticated guests. You can save app data locally on users’ devices allowing your applications to work even when the devices are offline.	It is a comprehensive identity and access management solution that gives you a robust set of capabilities to manage users and groups. You can get the reliability and scalability you need with identity services that work with your on-premises, cloud, or hybrid environment.
Manage Unique Identities;Work Offline;Store and Sync across Devices;Seamless Guest Access;Safeguard AWS Credentials;Control Access to AWS Resources	-
Statistics
Stacks 616	Stacks 697
Followers 917	Followers 283
Votes 34	Votes 6
Pros & Cons
Pros 14 Backed by Amazon 7 Manage Unique Identities 4 Work Offline 3 MFA 2 Store and Sync Cons 4 Massive Pain to get working 3 Documentation often out of date 2 Login-UI sparsely customizable (e.g. no translation) 1 Docs are vast but mostly useless 1 Only paid support	Pros 6 Backed by Microsoft Azure Cons 3 Closed source

What are some alternatives to Amazon Cognito, Azure Active Directory?

Auth0

A set of unified APIs and tools that instantly enables Single Sign On and user management to all your applications.

Stormpath

Stormpath is an authentication and user management service that helps development teams quickly and securely build web and mobile applications and services.

bitwarden

bitwarden is the easiest and safest way to store and sync your passwords across all of your devices.

Keycloak

It is an Open Source Identity and Access Management For Modern Applications and Services. It adds authentication to applications and secure services with minimum fuss. No need to deal with storing users or authenticating users. It's all available out of the box.

LastPass

LastPass Enterprise offers your employees and admins a single, unified experience that combines the power of SAML SSO coupled with enterprise-class password vaulting. LastPass is your first line of defense in the battle to protect your digital assets from the significant risks associated with employee password re-use and phishing.

Devise

Devise is a flexible authentication solution for Rails based on Warden

Firebase Authentication

It provides backend services, easy-to-use SDKs, and ready-made UI libraries to authenticate users to your app. It supports authentication using passwords, phone numbers, popular federated identity providers like Google,

Passbolt

Passbolt is an open source password manager for teams. It allows to securely store and share credentials, and is based on OpenPGP.

KeePass

It is an open source password manager. Passwords can be stored in highly-encrypted databases, which can be unlocked with one master password or key file.

KeePassXC

It is a cross-platform community-driven port of the Windows application “Keepass Password Safe”. It can store your passwords safely and auto-type them into your everyday websites and applications.

Related Comparisons

Amazon Cognito vs Azure Active Directory: What are the differences?

Authentication and Authorization Model: The key difference between Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory lies in their authentication and authorization models. Amazon Cognito provides a user pool feature that supports authentication and identity management for web and mobile applications. It allows developers to easily authenticate users using social identity providers, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon. On the other hand, Azure Active Directory is a comprehensive identity and access management solution that primarily focuses on enterprise-level authentication and authorization. It provides features like single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and role-based access control (RBAC) to enable secure access to various resources.
Scalability and Availability: When it comes to scalability and availability, Amazon Cognito has an advantage over Azure Active Directory. Amazon Cognito is built on AWS infrastructure, which is known for its scalability and high availability. It can automatically scale to accommodate a large number of users and provides built-in fault tolerance. In contrast, Azure Active Directory may have limitations in terms of scalability and availability, especially for organizations with a significant number of users or complex requirements.
Integration with AWS Services vs. Microsoft Services: Another key difference is the integration capabilities of Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory with their respective cloud ecosystems. Amazon Cognito seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, and Amazon API Gateway, allowing developers to build end-to-end solutions using a wide range of AWS tools. On the other hand, Azure Active Directory has strong integration with Microsoft services like Azure App Service, Office 365, and Microsoft Graph API, providing a cohesive experience for organizations heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Pricing Model: The pricing models of Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory also differ. Amazon Cognito offers a free tier for up to 50,000 monthly active users in the user pool, with additional charges for authentication and data synchronization. Azure Active Directory comes with different pricing tiers depending on the features and capabilities required by the organization. The pricing is based on per-user and per-application basis, with additional charges for premium features like SSO and MFA.
Supported Platforms and Protocols: When it comes to supported platforms and protocols, Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory have different focuses. Amazon Cognito primarily targets web and mobile applications, providing SDKs for various platforms like iOS, Android, JavaScript, and React Native. It supports popular standard authentication protocols like OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0. Azure Active Directory, on the other hand, provides broader support for various platforms, including web, mobile, and desktop applications. It also supports a wide range of authentication protocols like SAML, WS-Federation, and OAuth.
Customization and Extensibility: Both Amazon Cognito and Azure Active Directory offer customization and extensibility options, but with different areas of focus. Amazon Cognito allows developers to customize the user interface of the authentication flow to match the application's branding. It also supports custom authentication flows using Lambda triggers. Azure Active Directory, on the other hand, provides extensive customization options for user attributes and claims mapping. It also supports custom policies for fine-grained control over authentication and authorization behavior.

Amazon Cognito vs Azure Active Directory

Overview