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Amazon Cognito

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Amazon Cognito vs OAuth2: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this document, we will discuss the key differences between Amazon Cognito and OAuth2. Both Amazon Cognito and OAuth2 are authentication and authorization frameworks used for securing web and mobile applications. While they serve similar purposes, there are some important distinctions between them.

  1. User Management:

Amazon Cognito provides user management capabilities, allowing developers to create and manage user accounts in their applications. It provides services such as user authentication, registration, and password recovery. On the other hand, OAuth2 does not directly handle user management. It relies on an external identity provider (such as Cognito) to authenticate users and obtain access tokens.

  1. Scalability and Ease of Use:

Amazon Cognito is a fully managed service, which means that it scales automatically to handle user authentication and authorization requests. It provides an easy-to-use API and SDKs for integration with various platforms and programming languages. OAuth2, on the other hand, requires developers to build their own user management infrastructure, which can be more complex and time-consuming.

  1. Identity Federation:

Amazon Cognito supports identity federation, allowing users to sign in with their existing social media accounts (such as Google, Facebook, or Amazon). It also integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, such as AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Amazon S3. OAuth2, on the other hand, is a more generic protocol that can be used with any identity provider that supports it.

  1. Security Features:

Amazon Cognito provides built-in security features such as multi-factor authentication, encryption of data at rest, and fine-grained access control. It also supports secure token storage and validation. OAuth2, while it provides a framework for securing applications, does not specify any specific security features. It is up to the implementer to ensure the security of the application using OAuth2.

  1. Integration with AWS Services:

Amazon Cognito seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, such as AWS Lambda and AWS API Gateway, making it easy to build serverless applications with authentication and authorization capabilities. OAuth2, on the other hand, is a more generic protocol that can be integrated with any system or service that supports it, not specifically tied to AWS services.

  1. Pricing Model:

Amazon Cognito has a pricing model that is based on the number of monthly active users and the amount of data stored in the user pool. OAuth2, being a protocol, does not have any specific pricing associated with it. The cost of implementing OAuth2 would depend on the infrastructure and services used for user management.

In summary, Amazon Cognito provides user management capabilities, is fully managed, supports identity federation, offers built-in security features, integrates well with AWS services, and has a specific pricing model. OAuth2, on the other hand, requires developers to build their own user management infrastructure, is a more generic protocol, does not specify security features, can be integrated with any system, and does not have any specific pricing associated with it.

Decisions about Amazon Cognito and OAuth2
Brent Maxwell
Migrated
from
Amazon CognitoAmazon Cognito
to
Auth0Auth0

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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Pros of Amazon Cognito
Pros of OAuth2
  • 14
    Backed by Amazon
  • 7
    Manage Unique Identities
  • 4
    Work Offline
  • 3
    MFA
  • 2
    Store and Sync
  • 1
    Free for first 50000 users
  • 1
    It works
  • 1
    Integrate with Google, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, SAML
  • 1
    SDKs and code samples
    Be the first to leave a pro

    Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

    Cons of Amazon Cognito
    Cons of OAuth2
    • 4
      Massive Pain to get working
    • 3
      Documentation often out of date
    • 2
      Login-UI sparsely customizable (e.g. no translation)
    • 1
      Docs are vast but mostly useless
    • 1
      MFA: there is no "forget device" function
    • 1
      Difficult to customize (basic-pack is more than humble)
    • 1
      Lacks many basic features
    • 1
      There is no "Logout" method in the API
    • 1
      Different Language SDKs not compatible
    • 1
      No recovery codes for MFA
    • 1
      Hard to find expiration times for tokens/codes
    • 1
      Only paid support
      Be the first to leave a con

      Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

      What is Amazon Cognito?

      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.

      What is OAuth2?

      It is an authorization framework that enables a third-party application to obtain limited access to an HTTP service, either on behalf of a resource owner by orchestrating an approval interaction between the resource owner and the HTTP service, or by allowing the third-party application to obtain access on its own behalf.

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      What companies use Amazon Cognito?
      What companies use OAuth2?
      See which teams inside your own company are using Amazon Cognito or OAuth2.
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      What tools integrate with Amazon Cognito?
      What tools integrate with OAuth2?

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      Blog Posts

      Sep 29 2020 at 7:36PM

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      PythonSlackG Suite+17
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      What are some alternatives to Amazon Cognito and OAuth2?
      Auth0
      A set of unified APIs and tools that instantly enables Single Sign On and user management to all your applications.
      Okta
      Connect all your apps in days, not months, with instant access to thousands of pre-built integrations - even add apps to the network yourself. Integrations are easy to set up, constantly monitored, proactively repaired and handle authentication and provisioning.
      Firebase
      Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.
      AWS IAM
      It enables you to manage access to AWS services and resources securely. Using IAM, you can create and manage AWS users and groups, and use permissions to allow and deny their access to AWS resources.
      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.
      See all alternatives