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Amazon Cognito vs ForgeRock 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
ForgeRock
Ranking in Access Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (5th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 4.1%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ForgeRock is 5.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ForgeRock5.2%
Amazon Cognito4.1%
Other90.7%
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.
SR
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Centralized access control has improved secure onboarding and supports strict compliance
I wish we had used ForgeRock's adaptive risk-based authentication, which allows dynamic adjustment of authentication requirements based on user behavior. This could have helped us further strengthen our security. Another hidden gem is the built-in support for custom authentication modules and scripting, which gives a great deal of flexibility to tailor authentication flows. The self-service capabilities for password resets and account recovery have been very helpful in reducing support overhead and improving user experience. Discovering and utilizing these features would have definitely made our integration even smoother and would have provided additional value for both our users and our security team. One area of improvement would be the user interface for policy and workflow configuration, which can become complex and sometimes unintuitive, especially for new administrators. A more streamlined and user-friendly UI would help reduce the learning curve. Enhanced out-of-the-box analytics and reporting would also be valuable, as our current options often require custom development or integration with external tools. While extensibility is a strength, documentation for advanced customizations and integrations could be more comprehensive and easier to follow. Improved support for seamless upgrades and backward compatibility would also help minimize downtime. In terms of performance, optimizing the platform for high concurrency environments would be beneficial, especially for organizations with large user bases or peak usage periods. Enhanced scalability features such as more granular or horizontal scaling options would provide better support for distributed deployments. For integrations, having more pre-built connectors and easy integration with modern cloud-native services would accelerate adoption. Improved monitoring and real-time health dashboards would help proactively identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"The features most valuable to us are the ability to integrate with various IDPs and the capability to sync with multiple applications."
"One of the key benefits of this software is its ease of integration with a wide range of applications, including mobile apps and web applications. This simplifies the process of integration, and it can be seamlessly incorporated with Azure, Kubernetes, and other software systems."
"The solution is proto connective and integrates well with other AWS services."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are the pre and post-token generation, and the different Cognito triggers. It has lots of functionality and flexibility."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."
"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."
"It works very well, especially in Identity and Access Management. It helps detect anomalies in user behavior patterns."
"I like the intelligent authentication feature."
"ForgeRock has CIAM, which other products didn't have, and they have DevOps ready."
"ForgeRock has had a very positive impact on my organization, especially in terms of standardization, security posture, and operational efficiency."
"The integration has been smooth and the costs have been significantly reduced."
"The support is good and prompt."
"ForgeRock products are customizable, and the out-of-the-box features are solid, too. I primarily use the OIDC compliance features. It's just a configuration. it's easy to set up and customize trees. We can add our own features if necessary. Banks and corporations have different standards and specific validations."
"ForgeRock enabled us to deliver a more secure and compliant onboarding experience while also improving efficiency."
 

Cons

"Amazon Cognito’s UI needs improvement while onboarding new users."
"I believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles."
"There is room for improvement in Amazon Cognito."
"The ease and simplicity of integration could be improved when using this solution. When using Okta, scope is a single endpoint with a parameter as a scope. In the Cognito for each scope, there is a separate endpoint."
"Cognito triggers can improve by providing more direct use cases rather than giving a white paper. A white paper is not at all interesting, it has too many details. It would be a benefit to provide a smaller document that is summarized. The smaller version would bring microdata, macro data is not helpful."
"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 improve by simplifying the configuration."
"It should be a little bit easier to implement. It is user-friendly, but there is always scope for improvement."
"They should improve the solution by include reporting."
"ForgeRock is an open source solution and is available to everyone but it is not freeware. If you need support, you need a subscription for ForgeRock. Many of its functionalities need to be built up with the help of a consultant."
"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by limiting the need to do customizations."
"We're worried about the scaling. We're told it will be okay and there won't be issues, however, I'm not 100% convinced."
"The solution's documentation is not very good, and they do not give more details."
"We raised tickets asking for improvements, but sometimes we don't get the proper solution. They are responding, but the ticket is open for weeks and weeks. For some issues, we don't get a satisfactory solution or the solution doesn't work."
"As with any complex software platform, there is a learning curve to using ForgeRock, and it may require specialized expertise to implement and manage effectively."
 

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 product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"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 the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is expensive. We are on an annual subscription."
"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."
"ForgeRock's pricing is more competitive than other products."
"We have multiple clients we are looking at right now. We are at a very small number, however, the idea and the goal is to grow. We are looking at about $100,000 and $50,000 a minimum a month cost. That'd be minimum maybe in a couple of years."
"Its price is comparable to other products in the market."
"The pricing of the solution is fair but I do not have the full details."
"The license is purchased annually per user. However, you can negotiate if you are signing for a longer period of time. When comparing this solution to others on the market it is priced fair, it is not at the top of the price range or at the bottom end."
"It's a bit pricey and could be more competitive."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis, but it also depends on the contract that you have with the vendor. They have multiple types of contracts. There are additional costs to the standard licensing fees. If you need some of the features, you have to pay more."
"ForgeRock is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance 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 Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Cognito?
The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Cognito?
The basic functionality is reasonably priced, but the extended functionalities, especially the extended security, are quite expensive. There is a significant jump from the basic to the extended fun...
What needs improvement with Amazon Cognito?
Branding could be improved. When you use the Amazon Cognito domain and have a panel to login the user, I would add more customization options, such as icons or customization to the modal window whi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ForgeRock?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing are very straightforward, which is a good success. I appreciate that it is very straightforward and helpful.
What needs improvement with ForgeRock?
I wish the JavaScript part could be improved, as not everyone is proficient in JavaScript, so automating that or reducing the reliance on it could be beneficial. Additionally, having only one realm...
What is your primary use case for ForgeRock?
My main use case for ForgeRock is designing user journeys, specifically customer user journeys, and how they interact with the system. A specific example of a user journey I designed using ForgeRoc...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ForgeRock Identity Platform, ForgeRock OpenIDM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Geico, Thomson Reuters, Salesforce, McKesson, Trinet, SKY, BNP Paribas, Deloitte, Capgemini, North Western University
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. ForgeRock and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.