Feature-level notice: Amazon Cognito Sync has been closed to new customers since July 30, 2026. Cognito user pools and identity pools are not affected.
What is Amazon Cognito?
Amazon Cognito is an identity management service for web and mobile applications. The service provides user registration, authentication, and access control without your own identity infrastructure. Cognito supports social login, SAML, and OpenID Connect for federation with external identity providers, and can run on the Lite, Essentials, or Plus plan depending on your requirements.
Core Features
- User Pools for user registration and login
- Identity Pools for exchanging tokens for temporary AWS credentials
- Social login with Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon
- SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect federation
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
- Lite, Essentials, and Plus plans with different feature sets, switchable per user pool at any time
Typical Use Cases
SaaS Applications: Cognito fully manages user registration, login, and password recovery. SDKs for JavaScript, iOS, Android, and React Native accelerate integration.
Federated Identity: Connect enterprise identity providers via SAML or OIDC. Employees log in with their company credentials without creating separate accounts.
Serverless Backends: Identity Pools exchange Cognito tokens for temporary AWS credentials. Authenticated users can directly access S3, DynamoDB, or API Gateway.
Benefits
- No own identity infrastructure required
- Scales automatically to large user numbers
- Integrated security features like MFA and password policies
- Flexible plan choice based on feature needs and usage volume
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with Amazon Cognito: authentication architecture, federation setup, user migration, plan selection, and integration into your applications.
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Amazon Cognito?
Amazon Cognito is an identity management service for web and mobile applications. It provides user registration, authentication, and access control without requiring you to operate your own identity infrastructure.
What does Amazon Cognito cost?
Cognito offers Lite, Essentials, and Plus plans with different feature sets and prices per monthly active user (MAU). Lite and Essentials include a monthly free tier of MAUs, and SAML/OIDC federation has its own, smaller free tier. Exact prices are listed on the official pricing page.
What is the difference between User Pools and Identity Pools?
User Pools manage user registration and authentication. Identity Pools exchange User Pool tokens or social login tokens for temporary AWS credentials for accessing AWS services.
Which social login providers does Cognito support?
Cognito supports Login with Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Additionally, you can integrate any SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect identity providers.
Can I connect Cognito with existing user databases?
Yes, Cognito User Pools support User Migration Triggers. On first login, a Lambda function checks the legacy database and seamlessly migrates the user to Cognito.
Note: All product information on this page has been compiled with care, but is provided without guarantee and may be outdated or incomplete. Cloud services evolve rapidly — features, pricing, SLAs, and availability change frequently. Authoritative and up-to-date information can only be found on the official product page of AWS (official documentation). This page does not represent an offer by AWS.