Best for — Authentication & Identity
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Medium
Who is AWS Cognito best for?
Quick fit guide: Who is AWS Cognito best for, who should avoid it, and what typically forces a switch.
Sources linked — see verification below.
Freshness & verification
Best use cases for AWS Cognito
- AWS-native teams that want fewer external SaaS dependencies
- Apps with straightforward authentication and federation needs
- Products comfortable building custom UX and workflows
- Teams optimizing for cloud-native primitives and control
- Workloads already on AWS where identity is part of infra
Who should avoid AWS Cognito?
- You need enterprise-ready CIAM with minimal build effort
- You need SCIM provisioning and polished B2B admin features quickly
- You need extensive customization without building blocks overhead
- You want best-in-class login UX out of the box
- You need identity governance features for workforce identity
Upgrade triggers for AWS Cognito
- Need enterprise SSO for customers (SAML/OIDC with complex requirements)
- Need multi-tenant admin controls and audit features
- Need advanced policies and security workflows beyond defaults
- Need user migration at scale from an existing identity provider
- Need higher observability and operational support guarantees
Sources & verification
Pricing and behavioral information comes from public documentation and structured research. When information is incomplete or volatile, we prefer to say so rather than guess.