Amazon Cognito vs. The Okta Identity Cloud

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

Appropriate to: integration in a heterogeneous environment, where threre's multiples system, OS' and roles that need to be setup. Okta works well with multiples OS and guarantee standarization of all these softwares in a unique and easy interface. Okta is also good for startups and medium size company, because besides being expensive you can balance this high cost with a basic IT team, due to the easyness of the software. Not appropriate to: companies that relies strongly in solutions of a single supplier, like Microsoft or Google. In these scenarios, will be chepear and faster to the inherit SSO solution.

Incentivized

• 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

• RBAC is simple, straight forward and easy to manage
• Integrations of Social Login are simple to configure and the Auth0 documentation shows step by step how to configure it
• Rules/Hooks provide customization to the Auth0 flow, making it a great solution to define how we allow our users to login into our applications

Incentivized

• Amazon Cognito has a bit of a learning curve. You need to learn its concepts and terminology. The documentation does not describe some topics comprehensively.
• Some Console screens would benefit from improved search and filtering options.
• When another AWS product (e.g., SageMaker) configures Cognito on your behalf, it is not clear what you're getting. For example, the expiration of a temporary password was configured but never communicated.

Incentivized

• The user interface of Okta is basic and needs improvement. There's some learning curve for new users.
• One time integration effort is high for the initial setup. Took us around 3 weeks.
• Okta times out pretty quick making us login multiple times in the day.

Incentivized

Okta has a passion to provide secure and scalable identity solution. Their passion has come across as advocacy in a way that has deepened my knowledge of the field of authentication. I took identity for granted before but after seeing features such as external authentication I know that Okta can enable my business to reach new heights

All the features AWS Cognito offers gives the user the options they need without making it too complicated. Your customers will be happy. On the administration site usability is also great. After a small learning curve, you can setup Cognito for your usage

Incentivized

Some of its features are great and some are slightly complex and not easy without vendor support.

Incentivized

The Okta Identity Cloud advertises 4 9's of reliability and I would go as far to say that it may even do better than that. As a true Global organization that operates in just about every region of the world, we have yet to have an issue with The Okta Identity Cloud that has impacted our business operations.

Incentivized

The Okta Identity Cloud performance is very good and there is never any reports from the user community or from the IT administrative team of slow response or sluggishness. In addition, integrations with other systems does not slow them down and everything works seamlessly. The only other feedback is that once in a while there is a slight delay in receiving a second factor on a mobile device but this is likely due to a phone endpoint issue and not the The Okta Identity Cloud service.

Incentivized

AWS Support overall is poor. Your main resources are trainings and the docs, and the docs can be very confusing. Using Cognito well involves having a developer learn it deeply and help support your team in understanding it. That said, Cognito's competitors also have dismal support and even worse documentation, so while this isn't a strength for Cognito it may still be the frontrunner here.

Incentivized

There isn't a clear method to get a hold of support when trouble arises if you're on their standard plan. You can file a support ticket and they generally are responsive. I've often been able to find similar questions to the questions I've had when it comes to support in their ticket history, however, some have been closed without a satisfactory conclusion for the original poster.

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

I have Exposure to Okta and SailPoint. And they go hand in hand. Where SailPoint manages the Identity Platform and Okta manages the Access management and Federated authentication. There is not such specific to compare. But for SailPoint you need infra, and Deep understanding of code and tool is required. On okta front its more user friendly

Incentivized

Being a cloud native application, The Okta Identity Cloud is extremely scalable and easy to setup. By integrating into existing directories and applications via standard techniques and protocols, it is very easy to both initially setup and add additional users as required. Once all the necessary integrations are setup, it's a simple rinse and repeat process to onboard additional users (which can be automated with imports as well)

Incentivized

• ROI is great for Amazon Cognito Overall.
• It is included in the AWS Free Tier so you can use it for a good amount without paying, so the software can be tested beforehand.
• The paid pricing is also affordable, so a positive impact on ROI.

Incentivized

• Customer experience has been a big win for us. Extremely minimal issues reported.
• We did not have a PAM in place at all until The Okta Identity Cloud
• Relatively easy to deploy. No major downtimes to deploy was a nice bonus.