Authaz vs Cognito

An IAM platform you don't have to fight to configure.

Cognito ships flexibility. Authaz ships an opinionated model: organizations, members, RBAC, ReBAC, and audit — composed cleanly, with SDKs that match the docs.

If your team has bumped into Cognito's pre-token Lambda, group-claim mapping, or per-app pool drift, you already know what's hard. Authaz makes those decisions for you in a way that fits B2B SaaS — without giving up control.

Where we differ

Less configuration. More opinion. Same control where it matters.

Axis
Cognito
Authaz
Multi-tenant model
User pools per tenant or shared pool with custom claims. Painful at scale.
Organizations and members as first-class primitives. Tenant context propagates everywhere.
Authorization
Verified Permissions as a separate service. IAM-style policies.
RBAC, ReBAC, and org-scoped policy in the same SDK. Decision log included.
Hosted UI
Configurable but constrained. Theming is brittle.
Custom domains, your branding, fully styled — all paid tiers.
SDKs
Multiple SDK families. Behavior diverges across languages.
Same primitives across TS, Go, Python, .NET, Rust.
Migrations
Pool migrations are painful. User data export is limited.
Documented migration path. Dual-write window supported.
Operational ergonomics
Deep AWS console. Dashboards that miss the operational story.
Operational dashboards built for product and security teams alike.
Built for teams who'd rather ship product

Replace the configuration maze with a model.

Tenants modeled, not configured
Organizations and members are primitives. You don't pick between user-pool-per-tenant and group claims — you don't have to.
Authorization that comes with auth
Skip Verified Permissions, custom Lambdas, and group-claim spelunking. Policy lives next to your auth model.
SDKs that match the docs
Same primitives across TypeScript, Go, Python, .NET, Rust. The example code on the page is the example code in your project.
Audit you can read
Immutable, filterable, exportable. Decision logs and event logs in one place.
Migration

Move off Cognito without forcing a password reset.

We support exporting from Cognito user pools, mapping groups to roles, and dual-writing during the rollover. Most teams complete in one or two weeks.

FAQ

Authaz vs Cognito, answered.

Is Authaz a good AWS Cognito alternative?

Yes. Authaz replaces Cognito's bespoke configuration — user-pool-per-tenant, pre-token Lambdas, group-claim mapping — with an opinionated model: organizations and members as primitives, RBAC and ReBAC in the same SDK, and consistent SDKs across TypeScript, Go, Python, .NET, and Rust.

Why is Authaz easier to configure than Cognito?

Cognito gives you flexibility you have to assemble; Authaz gives you a model. Tenants are modeled rather than configured, authorization ships with auth instead of a separate Verified Permissions service, and SDK behavior matches the docs across every language.

Does Authaz handle multi-tenant better than Cognito?

Authaz treats organizations and members as first-class primitives, and tenant context propagates through tokens, policy, and audit automatically. Cognito forces a choice between a user pool per tenant or a shared pool with custom claims — both of which get painful at scale.

Can I migrate from Cognito to Authaz?

Yes. Authaz supports exporting from Cognito user pools, mapping groups to roles, and dual-writing during the rollover, so no password reset is forced on users. Most teams complete the migration in one to two weeks.

Is Authaz available yet?

Authaz is pre-launch. Early access is rolling out to waitlist teams now, with general availability staged through 2026. Join the waitlist to request an invite and a migration consult — no credit card or contract required.

Stop fighting your IAM platform.

Get early access and a migration consult included.