Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users
AWS Identity and Access Management Logo

AWS Identity and Access Management pros and cons

4.5 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.
Get the report

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

AWS IAM provides standard access and identity management policies and roles for monitoring and logging.
The ease of control and the ability to manage group policies and individual policies are valuable features.
AWS IAM effectively restricts unauthorized use of AWS console and is beneficial for monitoring and privilege management.
AWS IAM allows organizing policy users into groups and defining policies and roles for enhanced security management.
AWS IAM offers Multi-Factor Authentication, adding an extra layer of security beyond standard protocols.

CONS

AWS Identity and Access Management could improve by providing a graphical user interface to simplify permissions management.
Workload management could benefit from temporary access features.
The command line interface options in AWS Identity and Access Management should be clearer regarding the purpose of each selection.
Documentation and policies could be more straightforward.
User activity tracking in AWS Identity and Access Management should be enhanced to provide detailed descriptions of user activities.
 

AWS Identity and Access Management Pros review quotes

Lalatendu Keshari Swain - PeerSpot reviewer
Group Manufacturing Head at Cerulean Information Technology
Oct 11, 2024
AWS IAM is beneficial as it provides standard access and identity management policies and roles for monitoring and logging.
Gaurav Chandel - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS DevOps/ Site Reliability Engineer at Tata Consultancy
Nov 18, 2024
AWS IAM is useful since it restricts unauthorized use of the AWS console.
Venkatramanan C.S. - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS Cloud Engineer at a tech services company
Nov 20, 2024
IAM is highly helpful for monitoring and privilege management.
Learn what your peers think about AWS Identity and Access Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Sita Thomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President - Engineering at Fedo.ai
Nov 27, 2024
Identity and Access Management allows organizing policy users into groups and defining policies and roles.
MA
AWS Solutions Architect at TechBiz Global
Dec 2, 2024
The most beneficial aspect of AWS Identity and Access Management is the ability to manage security.
PF
AWS cloud operations manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Dec 5, 2024
AWS Identity and Access Management has an intuitive user interface that is simple to use.
GR
AWS Engineer at Unemployed
Dec 5, 2024
AWS Identity and Access Management allows for creating, modifying, and deleting users or integrating with directories.
Sudalai Raja - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer AWS DevOps at Tiger Analytics
Dec 23, 2024
It also provides MFA, which adds an additional layer of security.
SumitMundik - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Admin Systems at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Aug 19, 2025
A significant advantage is that unlike access keys and secret keys that require regular changes every 30-90 days based on organizational policy, AWS Identity and Access Management roles, once set up, do not require periodic changes.
Bartosz Turkowyd - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Platform Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 21, 2025
Constructing permissions is easy and very robust; you have a lot of flexibility with IAM permissions, how you can define them, using wildcards, and you can have explicit deny, explicit allow, and different conditions that certain conditions have to be met that this IAM policy will be executed or respected.
 

AWS Identity and Access Management Cons review quotes

Lalatendu Keshari Swain - PeerSpot reviewer
Group Manufacturing Head at Cerulean Information Technology
Oct 11, 2024
AWS IAM could be improved by providing a graphical user interface which would simplify permissions management, making it easier for beginners to quickly understand and manage permissions.
Gaurav Chandel - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS DevOps/ Site Reliability Engineer at Tata Consultancy
Nov 18, 2024
Workload management could be improved by providing temporary access.
Venkatramanan C.S. - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS Cloud Engineer at a tech services company
Nov 20, 2024
There could be improvements in making the command line interface options clearer regarding the purpose of each selection.
Learn what your peers think about AWS Identity and Access Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Sita Thomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President - Engineering at Fedo.ai
Nov 27, 2024
The documentation and policies could be more straightforward.
MA
AWS Solutions Architect at TechBiz Global
Dec 2, 2024
The accessibility and inclusion of more AI features would greatly enhance the program.
PF
AWS cloud operations manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Dec 5, 2024
AWS Identity and Access Management has an intuitive user interface that is simple to use.
GR
AWS Engineer at Unemployed
Dec 5, 2024
I would like to see scalability improvements in AWS Identity and Access Management, such as better integration with existing systems and applications.
Sudalai Raja - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer AWS DevOps at Tiger Analytics
Dec 23, 2024
Currently, the IAM solution does not allow one user to create multiple access and secret keys, which can be distributed in a diverse manner.
SumitMundik - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Admin Systems at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Aug 19, 2025
There is an ongoing issue where files are sometimes sent twice to S3 buckets, despite MoveIt logs showing single transmission.