No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Amazon Cognito vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Cognito
Ranking in Access Management
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...
Ranking in Access Management
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (20th), Network Access Control (NAC) (11th), SSL VPN (7th), Remote Access (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 3.0%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 2.4%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon Cognito3.0%
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)2.4%
Other94.6%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

BM
Staff Software Engineer at Visa
Custom authentication has enabled secure multi-factor logins and unified access across apps
The features or capabilities of Amazon Cognito that I have found the most valuable so far include its seamless operation and the requirement of fewer integrations from the client side. All the features are there, enabling us to create the users, manage the groups, and manage access. Mostly, the access management is very good in Amazon Cognito, I would say. The benefits and positive impacts that Amazon Cognito has had in my experience include the fact that earlier we needed to implement so many things on behalf of the product itself. Now, the go-to-market strategy requires less than a week to complete integrations of the user flow, specifically mentioning that a basic authentication flow could be completed in a week itself. We don't have to care about how we manage the passwords, how we manage groups, and how we manage access management because all those things are there. It's handy, the documentation is very good, and it is easy to integrate. That's the reason I would say that the impact AWS is building on the product is great.
Senior Cyber Security Consultant at KoçSistem
Has provided reliable policy controls and secure web access for large enterprises
I consider Cloudflare when evaluating centralized access control features; Cloudflare utilizes multi-factor authentication and full API support, while F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) needs to enhance its API support. I recommend F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) for large companies such as Tüpraş and Ford. Tüpraş is one of the biggest companies in Turkey, along with other customers such as Tofaş, Euroko, Koç Holding, and more. For on-premises deployment, I would rate it a 10. For cloud deployment, I would rate it a seven. I primarily use it on-premises. I rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The features most valuable to us are the ability to integrate with various IDPs and the capability to sync with multiple applications."
"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"I rate Amazon Cognito nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"What is quite valuable is that we can outsource storage of the credentials to AWS, and they manage it quite securely."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."
"Amazon Cognito was particularly helpful and clear to use."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"On a scale from one to ten for stability, I would rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) a ten."
"It was very stable, the solution itself."
"The performance of the solution is valuable."
"We have seen a return on investment from F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager. It provided access at a time when we didn't have it."
"A lot of features are useful to me, including mostly the authentication, SAML, or SSO, with no sign-on."
"F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) provides excellent WAF and bot defense solutions."
"In my opinion, the GUI is perfect with the configuration options provided. F5 BIG-IP has given customization options and policy configuration tools in the GUI. It's good and good enough to work."
 

Cons

"I would rate its scalability as five out of ten. Moving users between different pools or accounts creates new identities, which means IDs stored in our database must also be changed."
"I believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles."
"The setup and configuration can be complex, especially for advanced use cases."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"You need to evaluate the export users. The multifactor authentication, much less this room for improving the configuration setup of that."
"In a future release, we would like to have different methods to validate the characteristic of a user. For example, we would like to use biometric data to analyze the behavior of users."
"Amazon Cognito could be improved by making it easier for us to add more data to the token, allowing customization of JWT. It requires a complex program to customize the token currently, however, the UI could support this configuration better."
"Amazon Cognito’s UI needs improvement while onboarding new users."
"The main improvement needed for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is to integrate into the cloud-delivered services from F5."
"The initial setup was not easy."
"F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) does not have a direction for SaaS."
"F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is not user-friendly and operates slowly."
"I have had a lot of issues in the past few months with the agents, which was disappointing."
"If I could copy and paste objects instead of picking and configuring them from scratch each time, it would be great."
"The solution’s GUI looks very old."
"F5 BIG-IP APM disconnects when you leave it for long enough, but that is natural for IT solutions to do. That's a little bit frustrating."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"The price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"The product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is expensive. We are on an annual subscription."
"The pricing of this solution is good compared to other solutions on the market."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."
"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The product is very expensive."
"Recently, they have simplified the licensing"
"The tool is a little bit expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Access Management solutions are best for your needs.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Cognito?
I am aware that the pricing of Amazon Cognito is not managed by me directly but is managed by some other teams, specifically the DevOps teams. As far as I know, it is based on how many users we hav...
What needs improvement with Amazon Cognito?
I think Amazon Cognito provides less flexibility to customize at the moment. It is very tightly coupled with its own services, so it does not provide customization according to what the client need...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Cognito?
The usual use cases for Amazon Cognito that I have been working with mostly involve working for TLG Apps for three and a half years, where TLG Apps is a FinTech company in the UK. We were working f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability, akin to purchasing a Bentley as opposed to an Audi.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is not user-friendly and operates slowly. Additional features for architecture such as Anycast would be beneficial. The ability to run the Anycast feature woul...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
I am using F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) along with Bot Management, API Gateway, API Security, and F5 Cloud. I am using F5 Advanced WAF, but I switch between ZTNA solutions such as FortiSAS...
 

Also Known As

No data available
F5 Access Policy Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.