We detected 2,658 customers using Amazon Cognito, 165 companies that churned or ended their trial, and 20 customers with estimated renewals in the next 3 months. The most common industry is Software Development (18%) and the most common company size is 11-50 employees (32%). Our methodology involves discovering URLs with known URL patterns through web crawling, certificate transparency logs, or modifications to subprocessor lists.
About Amazon Cognito
Amazon Cognito provides customer identity and access management for web and mobile applications, enabling user authentication through built-in directories or third-party identity providers like Google and Facebook. It issues secure tokens for accessing backend AWS resources and supports features like multi-factor authentication, passwordless login, and advanced security controls.
๐ Who in an organization decides to buy or use Amazon Cognito?
Source: Analysis of 100 job postings that mention Amazon Cognito
Job titles that mention Amazon Cognito
i
Based on an analysis of job titles from postings that mention Amazon Cognito.
Job Title
Share
Backend Engineer
29%
DevOps Engineer (SRE)
13%
Solutions Architect
9%
Frontend Engineer
7%
My analysis shows that Amazon Cognito purchasing decisions are primarily driven by engineering leadership and cloud architects, with 96% of postings being individual contributor roles rather than leadership positions. The buyers appear to be technical directors and engineering managers who prioritize authentication infrastructure that supports rapid scaling. These teams are looking for professionals who can handle identity and access management across multi-cloud environments, with emphasis on integration capabilities and security compliance.
The day-to-day users are predominantly backend engineers (29%) and DevOps engineers (13%) who implement Cognito alongside broader AWS service stacks. They're building authentication flows, managing user pools and identity pools, configuring federated identities, and integrating with microservices architectures. I noticed heavy emphasis on Infrastructure as Code expertise, particularly Terraform, and combining Cognito with services like API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB, and S3 for complete application ecosystems.
The pain points center on three themes: scale, security, and developer experience. Companies repeatedly mention needing to support "millions of users per customer" and handle explosive growth like "scaling from 20 million to 800 million authentications." Security requirements emphasize "bot and fraud threat detection" and compliance with standards like "NIST SP 800-171, ISO 27001, HIPAA." Teams want "seamless access for users while maintaining security controls" and solutions that let developers "focus on solving business problems" rather than building authentication from scratch.
๐ง What other technologies do Amazon Cognito customers also use?
Source: Analysis of tech stacks from 2,658 companies that use Amazon Cognito
Commonly Paired Technologies
i
Shows how much more likely Amazon Cognito customers are to use each tool compared to the general population. For example, 287x means customers are 287 times more likely to use that tool.
I noticed that Amazon Cognito users are building sophisticated internal tools and external products that require serious operational infrastructure. The combination of Retool for internal tooling, Sentry for error monitoring, and PagerDuty for incident response tells me these are companies treating their applications as mission-critical systems. They're not hobbyists or early MVPs. They're running products that need to stay up and perform reliably.
The pairing of Cognito with Retool is particularly revealing. These companies are building custom internal dashboards and admin panels to manage their authenticated users, likely because they have complex permission systems or need to support operations teams. The extremely high correlation with PagerDuty (150x more likely) suggests they're running always-on services where authentication failures would be genuine emergencies. Meanwhile, Amplitude appearing so frequently means they're deeply tracking how authenticated users behave in their applications, trying to optimize engagement and retention within member areas.
Looking at the full picture, these appear to be product-led growth companies in their scaling phase. They've moved past the earliest stages but haven't gone fully enterprise yet. The presence of Wistia suggests they're creating educational content to onboard users, while Jira Service Desk indicates they're handling enough support volume to need ticketing infrastructure. They're instrumenting everything (Sentry, Amplitude), building internal efficiency tools (Retool), and maintaining operational excellence (PagerDuty). This is the profile of a B2B SaaS company with paying customers who depend on their service.
๐ฅ What types of companies is most likely to use Amazon Cognito?
Source: Analysis of Linkedin bios of 2,658 companies that use Amazon Cognito
Company Characteristics
i
Shows how much more likely Amazon Cognito customers are to have each trait compared to all companies. For example, 2.0x means customers are twice as likely to have that characteristic.
Trait
Likelihood
Funding Stage: Series B
30.9x
Funding Stage: Series A
20.0x
Funding Stage: Private equity
15.0x
Industry: Software Development
6.3x
Industry: Insurance
6.2x
Industry: Transportation, Logistics, Supply Chain and Storage
4.9x
I analyzed these companies and found that Amazon Cognito users span an incredibly diverse range, from fitness franchises and medical device manufacturers to software platforms and traditional businesses digitizing their operations. What unites them is that most are building or operating digital platforms that require user authentication: healthcare companies managing patient portals, retailers running e-commerce sites, B2B software providers serving enterprise clients, and service businesses creating customer-facing applications. They're not just tech companies, they're any company that needs to manage digital user access securely.
These companies range dramatically in maturity. I see early-stage startups with seed funding under $1 million alongside publicly traded enterprises with 10,000+ employees. However, the majority fall into a middle band: established companies with 50-500 employees, often backed by Series A through Series D funding or operating as profitable private entities. Many are in active growth mode, expanding geographically or scaling their digital capabilities.
Alternatives and Competitors to Amazon Cognito
Explore vendors that are alternatives in this category