AWS Key Management Service vs Amazon Cognito

Overview

Amazon Cognito

Stacks616

Followers917

Votes34

AWS Key Management Service

Stacks231

Followers172

Votes14

AWS Key Management Service vs Amazon Cognito: What are the differences?

AWS Key Management Service vs Amazon Cognito: Key Differences

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers several services with different functionalities to cater to various security requirements of users. Two such services are AWS Key Management Service (KMS) and Amazon Cognito. Let's explore the key differences between these two services.

Integration with Different AWS Services:
- AWS KMS is primarily used for cryptographic key management, allowing users to create, manage, and secure encryption keys used to encrypt and decrypt data in other AWS services and applications.
- On the other hand, Amazon Cognito is a fully managed service that provides user authentication, user management, and access control capabilities. It is designed to be integrated with mobile and web applications and can authenticate users via various identity providers, including social media platforms and third-party identity services.
Scope of Service:
- AWS KMS focuses on secure key management, including key creation, rotation, and management of permissions and policies related to keys. It also supports integration with Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) for added security.
- In contrast, Amazon Cognito offers a broader set of features, including user signup and sign-in, identity verification, multi-factor authentication, and synchronization of user data across devices.
Encryption of Data:
- With AWS KMS, users can encrypt data at rest and in transit using keys managed by the service. It offers a variety of encryption algorithms and customization options, ensuring data remains secure.
- In contrast, Amazon Cognito does not directly handle encryption. However, it integrates with AWS KMS and allows developers to securely store and retrieve sensitive user data using encryption keys managed by KMS.
Use Case Orientation:
- AWS KMS is mainly aimed at developers and administrators who need to manage cryptographic keys securely and integrate them into their applications and services.
- On the other hand, Amazon Cognito targets application developers who require user management and authentication features for their mobile and web applications.
Pricing Model:
- AWS KMS pricing is primarily based on the number of keys managed, API calls made, and the regions in which the service is used. Users are billed for the key requests and AWS CloudTrail logging, among other factors.
- In contrast, Amazon Cognito pricing is based on the number of monthly active users (MAUs) and the volume of data synced across devices.

In summary, AWS KMS focuses on key management and encryption, providing a foundation for secure data storage and transmission, while Amazon Cognito offers user management, authentication, and access control features for mobile and web applications.

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Advice on Amazon Cognito, AWS Key Management Service

Brent

CEO at DEFY Labs

Mar 7, 2020

Decided

I started our team on Amazon Cognito because I was a Solutions Architect at AWS and found it really easy to follow the tutorials and get a basic app up and running with it.

When our team started working with it, they very quickly became frustrated because of the poor documentation. After 4 days of trying to get all the basic passwordless auth working, our lead engineer made the decision to abandon it and try Auth0... and managed to get everything implemented in 4 hours.

The consensus was that Cognito just isn't mature enough or well-documented, and that the implementation does not cater for real world use cases the way that it should. I believe Amplify has made some of this simpler, but I would still recommend Auth0 as it's been bulletproof for us, and is a sensible price.

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Detailed Comparison

Amazon Cognito	AWS Key Management Service
You can create unique identities for your users through a number of public login providers (Amazon, Facebook, and Google) and also support unauthenticated guests. You can save app data locally on users’ devices allowing your applications to work even when the devices are offline.	AWS Key Management Service (KMS) is a managed service that makes it easy for you to create and control the encryption keys used to encrypt your data, and uses Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) to protect the security of your keys. AWS Key Management Service is integrated with other AWS services including Amazon EBS, Amazon S3, and Amazon Redshift. AWS Key Management Service is also integrated with AWS CloudTrail to provide you with logs of all key usage to help meet your regulatory and compliance needs.
Manage Unique Identities;Work Offline;Store and Sync across Devices;Seamless Guest Access;Safeguard AWS Credentials;Control Access to AWS Resources	Centralized Key Management;Integrated with AWS services;Encryption for all your applications;Built-in Auditing;Fully Managed;Low-cost; Secure
Statistics
Stacks 616	Stacks 231
Followers 917	Followers 172
Votes 34	Votes 14
Pros & Cons
Pros 14 Backed by Amazon 7 Manage Unique Identities 4 Work Offline 3 MFA 2 Store and Sync Cons 4 Massive Pain to get working 3 Documentation often out of date 2 Login-UI sparsely customizable (e.g. no translation) 1 Hard to find expiration times for tokens/codes 1 Different Language SDKs not compatible	Pros 6 Integrated with AWS CloudTrail 4 KMS 4 Backed by Amazon 0 Free

What are some alternatives to Amazon Cognito, AWS Key Management Service?

Auth0

A set of unified APIs and tools that instantly enables Single Sign On and user management to all your applications.

Stormpath

Stormpath is an authentication and user management service that helps development teams quickly and securely build web and mobile applications and services.

Keycloak

It is an Open Source Identity and Access Management For Modern Applications and Services. It adds authentication to applications and secure services with minimum fuss. No need to deal with storing users or authenticating users. It's all available out of the box.

Devise

Devise is a flexible authentication solution for Rails based on Warden

Firebase Authentication

It provides backend services, easy-to-use SDKs, and ready-made UI libraries to authenticate users to your app. It supports authentication using passwords, phone numbers, popular federated identity providers like Google,

WorkOS

Start selling to enterprise customers with just a few lines of code.

OAuth.io

OAuth is a protocol that aimed to provide a single secure recipe to manage authorizations. It is now used by almost every web application. However, 30+ different implementations coexist. OAuth.io fixes this massive problem by acting as a universal adapter, thanks to a robust API. With OAuth.io integrating OAuth takes minutes instead of hours or days.

OmniAuth

OmniAuth is a Ruby authentication framework aimed to abstract away the difficulties of working with various types of authentication providers. It is meant to be hooked up to just about any system, from social networks to enterprise systems to simple username and password authentication.

ORY Hydra

It is a self-managed server that secures access to your applications and APIs with OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect. It is OpenID Connect Certified and optimized for latency, high throughput, and low resource consumption.

Kinde

Simple, powerful authentication that you can integrate in minutes. Free your users from passwords with secure and frictionless one click sign up and sign in. Built from the ground up using the best in class security protocols available today.

Related Comparisons

AWS Key Management Service vs Amazon Cognito: What are the differences?

AWS Key Management Service vs Amazon Cognito: Key Differences

Integration with Different AWS Services:
- AWS KMS is primarily used for cryptographic key management, allowing users to create, manage, and secure encryption keys used to encrypt and decrypt data in other AWS services and applications.
- On the other hand, Amazon Cognito is a fully managed service that provides user authentication, user management, and access control capabilities. It is designed to be integrated with mobile and web applications and can authenticate users via various identity providers, including social media platforms and third-party identity services.
Scope of Service:
- AWS KMS focuses on secure key management, including key creation, rotation, and management of permissions and policies related to keys. It also supports integration with Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) for added security.
- In contrast, Amazon Cognito offers a broader set of features, including user signup and sign-in, identity verification, multi-factor authentication, and synchronization of user data across devices.
Encryption of Data:
- With AWS KMS, users can encrypt data at rest and in transit using keys managed by the service. It offers a variety of encryption algorithms and customization options, ensuring data remains secure.
- In contrast, Amazon Cognito does not directly handle encryption. However, it integrates with AWS KMS and allows developers to securely store and retrieve sensitive user data using encryption keys managed by KMS.
Use Case Orientation:
- AWS KMS is mainly aimed at developers and administrators who need to manage cryptographic keys securely and integrate them into their applications and services.
- On the other hand, Amazon Cognito targets application developers who require user management and authentication features for their mobile and web applications.
Pricing Model:
- AWS KMS pricing is primarily based on the number of keys managed, API calls made, and the regions in which the service is used. Users are billed for the key requests and AWS CloudTrail logging, among other factors.
- In contrast, Amazon Cognito pricing is based on the number of monthly active users (MAUs) and the volume of data synced across devices.

AWS Key Management Service vs Amazon Cognito

Overview

AWS Key Management Service vs Amazon Cognito: What are the differences?