AWS IAM vs Oathkeeper: What are the differences?

# Key Differences between AWS IAM and Oathkeeper

IAM (Identity and Access Management) on AWS is a service that helps manage user identities and their access to resources within the AWS platform. Unlike Oathkeeper, which is an open-source, cloud-native project that provides identity and access control for microservices and APIs. 

1. **Scope of Control**: AWS IAM is limited to managing access within the AWS cloud platform, while Oathkeeper can be used in a broader context, including hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Oathkeeper's flexibility allows organizations to centralize their access control policies across different cloud providers and on-premises systems. 

2. **Integration Flexibility**: AWS IAM is deeply integrated with various AWS services, providing seamless access control within the AWS ecosystem. On the other hand, Oathkeeper is designed to be cloud provider agnostic, allowing it to integrate with multiple cloud providers and third-party services. This makes Oathkeeper more versatile in a diverse IT environment.

3. **Granularity of Policy Control**: While both AWS IAM and Oathkeeper offer policy-based access control, Oathkeeper provides finer-grained control over access policies at the API level. This granularity allows organizations to enforce specific access rules for individual APIs, enhancing security and compliance measures compared to AWS IAM.

4. **Authenticatio**n**: AWS IAM primarily relies on AWS's authentication mechanisms, such as access keys, IAM users, and roles. On the other hand, Oathkeeper supports various authentication methods, including OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and custom authentication solutions. This gives organizations more flexibility in implementing secure authentication mechanisms for their services.

5. **Community Support and Customization**: Oathkeeper being an open-source project benefits from a robust community that contributes to its development and maintenance. This community support allows for more customization options and the ability to address specific use cases that may not be natively supported by AWS IAM.

6. **Cost and Pricing Model**: AWS IAM is a managed service provided by AWS, and its pricing is based on usage and the number of users and roles created. In contrast, Oathkeeper being open-source, provides a cost-effective solution as organizations do not incur licensing fees or costs associated with proprietary software. This can result in significant cost savings for organizations, especially those with large-scale deployments.

In Summary, AWS IAM and Oathkeeper differ in scope, integration flexibility, granularity of policy control, authentication methods, community support, and cost implications.