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Amazon Cognito vs Okta Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

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
Okta Platform
Ranking in Access Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), Authentication Systems (4th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (3rd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (4th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (1st), AI IT Support (2nd)
 

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 Okta Platform is 10.8%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Okta Platform10.8%
Amazon Cognito4.1%
Other85.1%
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.
SN
Identity and Access Management Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees
Automated lifecycle management has cut onboarding times and now drives secure, clean access
Although I am a fan of Okta Platform overall, there are areas where it could improve security outcomes and reduce admin friction. My top improvement areas include the system log and analytics upgrade, which are great for point troubleshooting, but trending and root cause analysis across large tenants still require exporting to SIEM. Verbose queries and long-range retention costs can add up. Additionally, while certificate rotations are better than most, the process is still manual for busy portfolios, especially concerning multi-SP SAML certificate rotations and app metadata drift. Two more buckets of potential improvements for Okta Platform involve user experience and security. There is the issue of push fatigue and prompt sprawl, where users receive multiple prompts across different apps and sessions. I arrived at the rating of eight because the core controls are strong and reliable, but a few operational UX and UI gaps prevent it from being rated higher. The reasons for not giving it a nine or ten include ongoing issues concerning safety and change safety, the complexity of group rules and mappings, and the lack of robustness in policy management. Additionally, there remains a need for more manual involvement than necessary, especially for large portfolios and dual certificate rotation, along with proactive SP data metadata validation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Amazon Cognito was particularly helpful and clear to use."
"The multi-factor authentication setup has room for improvement."
"The features most valuable to us are the ability to integrate with various IDPs and the capability to sync with multiple applications."
"This is a scalable solution. If our app or general usage increases, this solution can support it."
"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."
"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 features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"The solution so far has been very stable."
"In my opinion, Okta Platform's best features include federation, which is very important, especially when you work with different systems."
"Okta Customer Identity is considered cheaper compared to other tools in the market, such as IBM and CyberArk products."
"They have good push authentications."
"If anyone asks for a suggestion, I will definitely suggest Okta Platform."
"The tool helps improve our security and productivity."
"The positive impact I have seen from using Okta Platform is that it makes it easier for new joiners to get birthright access and have users added based on department or employee type."
"The most useful features of Okta for my organization are identity and access management, single sign-on, and the flexibility for hybrid setups."
 

Cons

"The setup and configuration can be complex, especially for advanced use cases."
"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."
"Amazon Cognito’s UI needs improvement while onboarding new users."
"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."
"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."
"I think Amazon Cognito provides less flexibility to customize at the moment."
"You need to evaluate the export users. The multifactor authentication, much less this room for improving the configuration setup of that."
"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."
"It is challenging to obtain a comprehensive backup."
"In my country, there's a lot of stealing of mobile phones, and mobile phones are the authentication device through the Okta application. If someone should steal my mobile phone, which is very common in my country, he or she might have access to my company account. That's my concern."
"I would expect Okta Platform to include more features over time in their less expensive subscriptions."
"All of the governance functionality and privileged account management could be improved."
"The integration with third-party tools needs to be improved."
"Okta Platform could be improved by offering more out-of-the-box templates for advanced workflows and making the administration console faster when searching through a very large group of users."
"In Okta Identity Governance and Okta Privileged Access, some features are still being developed. Integration with Active Directory servers, Cisco routers, and switches is not currently available."
"The only aspect in which it can be improved is that the interface could be cleaner. I found this even when I was trying to do my certification exam because the certification is hands-on. You find yourself fumbling around a little bit to find simple things. This happens even when you start to get familiar with the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of this solution is good compared to other solutions on the market."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is expensive. We are on an annual subscription."
"The price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"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 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."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"The product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"The solution is not the cheapest but not the most expensive. They are in the middle rating."
"It has a yearly subscription. As compared to its competitors, it is quite expensive. It also has a complex licensing model."
"The product has a user-based license model."
"Workforce Identity is well-priced."
"Pricing might be high, but it comes down when the number of people using the product goes up."
"The solution is really expensive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing model is fine for general service usage. However, the charges for API features and API tokens can be quite high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
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 Business44
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise50
 

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 do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Currently, in Okta Workforce Identity we get the two-digit authentication code. Instead of getting the two-digit authentication code, if we had an option to do fingerprint verification, that would ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Okta Customer Identity, Workforce Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. Okta Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.