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Amazon Cognito vs Cisco Duo comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Cisco Duo
Ranking in Access Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (5th), Authentication Systems (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 2.5%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.2%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.2%
Amazon Cognito2.5%
Other94.3%
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.
Charles Slaustas - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
Supports seamless authentication for users across multiple organizations and personal portals
The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter. I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cognito speeds up our development and saves us time."
"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."
"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 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 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."
"Amazon Cognito was particularly helpful and clear to use."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"We like the different ways that it allows you to push notifications to people. It can do text, a phone call, and email. We liked the versatility for all of our different end-users, regardless of their level of understanding of the technology."
"Cisco Duo benefits my organization because we do not have too many logins since everything is in one place and we can use Cisco Duo for VPN, applications, and cloud solutions."
"Duo is a cloud-based product and it is a good product to maintain the security for the VPN."
"What I most appreciate about Cisco Duo is the ease of use."
"Cisco Duo is the added security layer in our overall identity and access management environment; it's the cornerstone of identity for us."
"Duo Security just adds another layer; it's a great addition to the security of any network infrastructure."
"Cisco Duo works within a huge Cisco security ecosystem and the integration is straightforward."
"Cisco Duo's authentication means people cannot get into our network without the second step."
 

Cons

"Amazon Cognito’s UI needs improvement while onboarding new users."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"I would rate its scalability as five out of ten. Moving users between different pools or accounts creates new identities, which means IDs stored in our database must also be changed."
"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."
"The secure authentication of Amazon Cognito has benefited our company. We were previously using legacy signup systems."
"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."
"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, but in Cognito, for each scope, there is a separate endpoint."
"What I found generally lacking in AWS is privileged access management (PAM)."
"Cisco Duo could definitely be improved, particularly regarding some of the reporting it does, as it currently lacks detail; for example, we had an issue where someone was getting prompted multiple times, but the console only detected it that one time."
"I think Cisco Duo can be improved."
"There was an issue related to integration with third parties."
"An enhancement they might make is if they can log it to Splunk since they're big into Splunk. Instead of me having to go into that portal to look at things when someone is trying to log in and they forgot their password, I can look in and tell them they forgot their password or didn't respond to the prompt. That would be an improvement."
"The pricing for Cisco Duo is kind of okay, but most of the time, your competitor is someone like Microsoft who gives it out for free with their offering, making it tough to argue with customers why they should spend additional dollars to also get Duo to improve their setup, but I think the pricing is fair."
"They can make authentication easier. It should be done in a shorter time. Sometimes, it can take a bit more time to get the answer on your phone. You have to wait a bit longer to get the SMS code and other things. There can be some internet or connection issues. They should make it faster because sometimes, it's urgent, and you need to access something as soon as possible."
"Its management interface should also be improved. They should also improve its update period."
"I think the location accuracy could use a little improvement because it does not always show the exact location from which I am signing in."
 

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."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."
"The price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"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 product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."
"Cisco's licensing is always a bit complicated to understand, but the price is fair. It could be more expensive than others, but the way they integrate everything, it has a fair price."
"Duo Security is free."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"It has a fair pricing model. I know they have different tiers, but it would be nice to have different types of licenses for certain groups of users in our organization. That way, we wouldn't have to lump everybody into one group. That would be also one complaint."
"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 Business64
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Cognito?
I am aware that the pricing of Amazon Cognito is not managed by me directly but is managed by some other teams, specifically the DevOps teams. As far as I know, it is based on how many users we hav...
What needs improvement with Amazon Cognito?
I think Amazon Cognito provides less flexibility to customize at the moment. It is very tightly coupled with its own services, so it does not provide customization according to what the client need...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Cognito?
The usual use cases for Amazon Cognito that I have been working with mostly involve working for TLG Apps for three and a half years, where TLG Apps is a FinTech company in the UK. We were working f...
How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cisco Duo indicates that the main setup cost for us has been the time and effort required to integrate Duo with existing applications, auth...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
Cisco Duo is generally easy to use, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. The initial setup and configuration can require some technical knowledge, especially when integrating Duo w...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Duo Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. Cisco Duo and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.