Amazon Cognito vs. JumpCloud

Well Suited

1. B2C mobile and web apps with a high number of users.
2. Cheaper and cost-effective.
3. If the other pieces of the infra are already using AWS services like Lambda, S3, Pinpoint, etc.

Not Suited For:

1. Advanced use-cases (Biometrics based authentication) Email, and other MFA channels.
2. For any use-cases needing SCIM.
3. Customized flows of SSO, and MFA will need a layer on Lambda and other AWS services.

Incentivized

JumpCloud is least suited in situations where you have few devices, but lots of users. JumpCloud heavily focuses on the "One-User-One-Device" type of use, and does lack some of the features things like Active Directory is better suited for when having multiple users accessing one machine. Their Powershell APIs are fantastic and getting only more powerful. Lots of features are hidden behind these APIs, so admins not as familiar with Powershell would have more issues leveraging these tools. BYOD deployments are amazing, especially for macOS devices that are using Apple Business Manager and can leverage Zero Touch deployments. It is especially good at handling mixed systems, whereas other options, such as Jamf, are really suiting only for macOS, or Intune is more suited for Windows; JumpCloud managed to handle both systems well.

• Strong integration with React.js and client-side applications
• Easy to bridge Cognito identities with the rest of the AWS ecosystem
• Easy to store user profile data directly in Cognito rather than having to build additional services/endpoints
• Easy integration with AWS Lambda to extend and add sophistication to the service

Incentivized

• User Management - The ability to control our users and set password/polices is made easy in the JC console
• Device Management - Using JC each user is assigned to their own device with only the rights to do their job - When elevated rights are required, this is done simply via the JC console for the period of time required
• SSO - Using JC's SAML SSO integrations we are building out our SSO offering and this is making for a much simpler daily user experience

Incentivized

• SCIM implementation is not present.
• B2B SaaS use-cases are very hard to configure. More suitable or B2C use-cases.
• Needs more recipes, plugins, SDK's.
• 2FA with Email as an OTP channel is not supported.
• 2 FA using biometrics is not available; can be customised using lambda.

Incentivized

• SSO via OpenID - Opening up their SSO from just SAML to including OpenID (OAuth) would allow us to make more use of the service and to also incorporate it into some internal testing suites
• Time Limited User Elevation - The ability to time limit a users elevation of privileges would be a great addition
• Extending device management to include LPA - Least Privilege Access is becoming a bigger ask from our external auditors - Being able to do this via JC would be amazing

Incentivized

Amazon Cognito is easy to use and implement if you don't need to implement custom policies. But if your security team requires something outside the box, then implementation becomes complicated and you risk wasting time. There is no option for customizable regex for passwords, which is a major deficiency. The standard password policy, allow to choose the length of the password, if it should contains at least one number, one special character, one uppercase letter and one lowercase letter.

Incentivized

It's simple. I like how JumpCloud keeps things simple. Similar to Apple's ecosystem, they give you what you want with some extra features and bells and whistles but it doesn't take a large instruction manual to use it. They have the support system and KB articles to back up their product and learn about a feature and how to implement it

Incentivized

Community support is excellent, many times even better and quicker then the offical AWS support. I really cannot recommend community support enough! Apart from that the service is relativily easy to use and does not have a huge learning curve. Examples are easy to follow and will help you start using the service.

Incentivized

We have their premium support. Not only is the support great, but our SAM / Account manager directs any questions or updates to the proper channels and gets us the needed info and solution quickly. Due to this, we find JumpCloud to exceed our expectations and puts us at ease that our Foundation Tech Solution is VERY reliable.

Incentivized

Being responsible for choosing the product after a POC and pilot we found the process to be simple and effective

Incentivized

They are ideal tools to create a secure and unique login experience for our applications. Thanks to its API authorization, Amazon Cognito ensures connections to applications that are secure.It is easy to use and provides easy access to files and applications that you need to complete your goal.

Incentivized

Incentivized

• Amazon Cognito has had a positive impact on our business by allowing us to develop services that require user sign-up and sign-in more rapidly. Not only do we not need to build or maintain these features, but Cognito's implementation is also better than what we would be justified in building ourselves.
• Amazon Cognito makes user management easy. This reduces the time we have to spend supporting users. Non-technical product managers can even use the AWS Console to manage users without requiring support from developers.
• Amazon Cognito is likely more secure than what would be built in-house; a portion of our attack surface is now managed by Amazon.

Incentivized

• Very easily add, or disable employee logins
• Reduce "password fatigue" by being able to reduce password expiration requirements, and having single sign on
• Higher security and visibility of security issues
• Reduced onboarding time from days to minutes
• Enabled easy reassignment of user accounts to another user via groups when employees leave
• Quick securing of terminated users, or otherwise compromised accounts
• Reduced user disablement time from previous manual methods requiring days, to literal minutes