Amazon Cognito vs. Clerk
Amazon Cognito
The biggest advantage of Cognito is that it's a part of the AWS ecosystem and integrates well with other AWS services. The free tier comes with 50,000 MAUs and the price for each additional MAU starts at $0.0055/month and goes down to as low as $0.0025/month as you scale to tens of millions of users. It integrated with four federated identity providers - your users can sign up with Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon.
Clerk
Clerk is a comprehensive user management and authentication platform designed to streamline how developers handle user accounts within web and mobile applications. It offers a suite of embeddable UI components—such as <SignIn/>, <SignUp/>, <UserButton/>, and <UserProfile/>—that integrate seamlessly into your application without redirecting users off-site. These components are fully customizable to match your brand, making the user experience cohesive and frictionless. Under the hood, Clerk provides a robust API and SDKs compatible with modern frameworks like Next.js, Remix, React, and Expo. It handles the entire authentication lifecycle, supporting multifactor authentication (MFA), session management, passwordless sign-in (via magic links or one-time passcodes), and traditional password-based methods with breach detection. The platform also integrates social sign-on (SSO) with over 20 providers, enabling quick user onboarding while adhering to security best practices. Clerk’s securit...
Reviews
Reviews
Reviewed on 2/25/2025
Clerk is a comprehensive authentication and user management platform. It comes with embeddable UIs, APIs and admin dashboards for user management. Clerk offers official SDKs for Next.js, React, JavaScript, Node.js, Remix, Go, Gatsby, and Ruby / Rails. There are many more community SDKs for other frameworks and languages. They have a free tier of 10,000 MAUs and a $25/month Pro tier with $0.02/MAU. Enhanced authentication, with SMS auth, device tracking and revocation, simultaneous sessions and SAML authentication costs additional $100/month. Admin add-on, with user impersonation and enhanced roles is another $100/month.
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Generous free tier | 1 | |
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Part of AWS ecosystem | 1 |
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Confusing, sometimes misleading documentation | 1 | |
Difficult to set up | 1 |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon Cognito and Clerk both offer robust authentication solutions but cater to different needs. Amazon Cognito integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, which can be a significant advantage if you're already using the AWS ecosystem. It also offers a generous free tier and a low price per monthly active user as you scale. However, it has been criticized for confusing and sometimes misleading documentation and can be difficult to set up. On the other hand, Clerk provides comprehensive authentication and user management features with official SDKs for multiple frameworks. Clerk's pricing includes a free tier of 10,000 MAUs and a Pro tier at $25/month with additional costs for enhanced authentication and admin add-ons. Clerk might be a better choice if you need specific SDKs and ease of use but could become more expensive with added features.
The pros of Amazon Cognito include its generous free tier, low price per monthly active user, and seamless integration with the AWS ecosystem. However, users have reported that the documentation can be confusing and sometimes misleading, and setting up the service can be difficult.
Amazon Cognito is a user authentication service that is part of the AWS ecosystem. It allows users to sign up and sign in with federated identity providers like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon. The service offers a free tier with 50,000 monthly active users (MAUs), and the cost for additional users starts at $0.0055 per MAU, decreasing as the number of users increases.
The main features of Amazon Cognito include integration with four federated identity providers (Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon), a generous free tier with 50,000 monthly active users, and competitive pricing that decreases as the number of users scales. It also integrates well with other AWS services, making it a comprehensive solution for user authentication within the AWS ecosystem.
Clerk is a comprehensive user management and authentication platform designed to streamline how developers handle user accounts within web and mobile applications. It offers a suite of embeddable UI components, such as <SignIn/>, <SignUp/>, <UserButton/>, and <UserProfile/>, that integrate seamlessly into applications without redirecting users off-site. Clerk also provides a robust API and SDKs compatible with modern frameworks like Next.js, Remix, React, and Expo.
Clerk includes features such as multifactor authentication (MFA), session management, passwordless sign-in, traditional password-based methods with breach detection, and social sign-on (SSO) with over 20 providers. It also offers advanced multi-tenancy features for B2B SaaS applications, allowing organization-based user management with custom roles and permissions.
Pros of Clerk include its comprehensive suite of embeddable UI components, robust API, and strong security features such as SOC 2 Type 2 certification and CCPA compliance. It also offers a free tier for up to 10,000 monthly active users, making it a scalable solution. However, some cons include the additional costs for enhanced authentication features and admin add-ons, which can add up for larger applications.
Clerk has a strong security posture that includes SOC 2 Type 2 certification and CCPA compliance. It undergoes continuous third-party audits and penetration testing. Additionally, Clerk incorporates fraud prevention measures such as disposable email blocking and machine learning-powered bot detection to reduce spam and abusive sign-ups.
Clerk offers a free tier for up to 10,000 monthly active users. For additional features, there is a Pro tier priced at $25 per month with a cost of $0.02 per additional monthly active user. Enhanced authentication features and admin add-ons are available for an additional $100 per month each.