Auth0 vs. Cognito vs. WorkOS: Which is best in 2024?

The authentication market is brimming with options, each boasting unique features, integration capabilities, and price points. From enterprise-focused solutions like WorkOS to versatile platforms like Auth0 and AWS Cognito, the diversity can make it difficult to pinpoint the best fit for your specific needs.

In this article, we will compare Auth0, Cognito, and WorkOS and break down their features and pricing to help you determine the most suitable choice for your application.

Auth0 vs. Cognito vs. WorkOS: Head-to-head

Auth0

Auth0, a product by Okta, offers a flexible, drop-in solution to add authentication and authorization services to your apps. It supports various authentication methods, including social logins, enterprise SSO (OIDC and SAML), and device authentication. It is known for its developer-friendly setup and extensive documentation.

Features of Auth0

• Universal login: Auth0 provides a centralized login feature, offering a single login experience across all applications using Auth0. This includes customization tools for the login box, social logins, enterprise SSO (OIDC and SAML SSO), federation with any identity provider, and device authentication. It is also WCAG AA compliant for accessibility.
• Multi-factor authentication: Auth0's MFA is flexible, supporting methods such as SMS, security keys, voice, and authenticator apps.
• Passwordless auth: This service supports various passwordless methods, including Fast Identity Online (FIDO) keys, device biometrics, passkeys, and one-time emails and SMS codes.
• Actions: Custom scripts in Auth0 allow you to tailor the authentication and authorization processes to meet specific operational needs. Actions can be triggered at various points, such as user sign-in or after token issuance.
• Machine-to-machine authentication: Designed for server-to-server interactions, this feature ensures that applications, backends, and APIs can securely exchange data and commands without direct human involvement using the OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials Grant.

Pros of Auth0

• Simple setup: Auth0 offers extensive SDKs and libraries, thorough docs, and demo apps that simplify the setup process.
• Customizable: Auth0's Universal Login allows customization of the login UI, allowing you to create a login experience that aligns with your brand. Additionally, you can embed custom logic into the authentication process with Actions. 
• Comprehensive security features: It offers strong security measures, including multi-factor authentication with flexible verification methods (SMS, security keys, voice, authenticator apps), passwordless authentication options, and breached password detection.
• Flexible authentication: It supports various authentication options, including email/password, social logins, federated authentication, and enterprise SSO.

Cons of Auth0

• Confusing pricing: Auth0 offers a free tier that supports up to 7,500 monthly active users with unlimited logins. However, the pricing for other plans can be confusing with some features such as anomaly detection and service authorization only available as add-ons, with no clear upfront pricing provided. 

Additionally, pricing details for the B2B Professional and Enterprise tiers are only available through direct contact with the sales team, not upfront. 

• It can get expensive: Auth0 can become quite expensive, especially as your user base grows. The free tier that allows 7,500 MAUs and 2 social connections might be sufficient for small projects or startups. Still, once you surpass certain thresholds, costs can escalate quickly due to the pricing structure based on the number of active users.

Pricing

Auth0 uses monthly active users (MAU) as the pricing model. Here’s a general breakdown of Auth0 pricing:

• Free plan for up to 7,500 MAUs
• B2C Essentials pricing starts at $35/Mo for 500 Monthly Active Users (MAUs)
• B2B Essentials pricing starts at $150/Mo for 500 MAUs
• B2C Professional pricing starts at $240/Mo for 1,000 MAUs
• B2B Professional and Enterprise plan pricing is only available via the sales team

Who is it suitable for?

Auth0 is ideal for developers who need a fast, easy-to-setup user authentication solution for B2C and B2B apps.

Cognito

Cognito is an identity management and authentication solution provided by AWS. It offers authentication, authorization, and user management for web and mobile applications. 

Features of Cognito

• User Pools: Cognito User Pools are user directories that provide sign-up and sign-in options for app users. They support various features, including MFA, account recovery mechanisms, and customizable user flows.
• Identity Pools (Federated Identities): Cognito Identity Pools provide AWS credentials to users to access AWS services directly or through Identity Federation. This includes giving access to unauthenticated users and to users who have been authenticated by third-party identity providers.
• Push synchronization: Cognito offers data synchronization capabilities that allow you to sync user profile data across devices and platforms, maintaining a seamless user experience.
• Machine-to-Machine authorization (M2M): Cognito supports machine-to-machine authorization via the OAuth 2.0 client credentials flow.

Pros of Cognito

• Integration with AWS: Cognito is deeply integrated with the AWS ecosystem, providing seamless connectivity with AWS services like Lambda, S3, API Gateway, and more. This is a major advantage for applications built on AWS — you don’t have to write a lot of custom code when connecting to these services.
• Scalable: Designed to scale automatically to handle millions of users.
• Cost-effective: Generally cost-effective, especially for startups and mid-sized businesses. Cognito offers a free tier for up to 50,000 MAUs.

Cons of Cognito

• Poor documentation: Unlike Auth0 and WorkOS, Cognito’s documentation is less comprehensive, and finding information specific to each feature is often challenging.
• Limited user interface customization: Cognito’s customization options for its hosted UI are limited, primarily allowing changes to basic colors. For more extensive customization, you’ll need to develop your custom UI from scratch.
• Migration issues: Switching from Cognito to another authentication provider can be problematic, as Cognito does not allow you to export user password hashes, complicating the migration process.

Pricing

Cognito charges are based on monthly active users for User Pools.

The free tier offers up to 50,000 MAUs, with 50 MAUS for SAML/OIDC connections and identity pool features. beyond that, costs are generally considered reasonable, scaling with usage:

• Cognito user pools cost $0.0055 per MAU for 50,001-100,000 users (after the 50,000 free tier) and scale down to $0.0025 per MAU for more than 10,000,000 users in the US East (N.Virginia) region.
• Cognito Sync costs are based on the total data saved in the Cognito store and the number of Sync operations done. You get 10GB of cloud sync store as part of your 12-month AWS free tier and 1, 000,000 sync operations per month. Beyond the free tier, it costs $0.15 for each 10,000 sync operations and $0.15 per GB of sync store per month.
• M2M authorization is charged monthly per-app client and token requests. There’s no free tier when you use Cognito for M2M auth.

Who is it suitable for?

Cognito is suitable for projects already heavily invested in the AWS ecosystem.

WorkOS

WorkOS is an all-in-one platform that quickly integrates enterprise-level features into your applications. In just minutes, not months, you can add functionalities like Single Sign-On (SSO), SCIM provisioning, Just-In-Time (JIT) provisioning, and user authentication.

Features of WorkOS 

• Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO): This product supports popular industry-standard protocols such as SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) and OIDC (OpenID Connect). It allows you to build SSO integrations that work with a wide range of identity providers, including Microsoft Entra, Okta, and OneLogin.
• Directory sync: Directory Sync allows your app to sync with SCIM-enabled enterprise directories such as Okta or PingFederate.
• Audit logs: WorkOS provides detailed logs of all actions and events related to authentication and authorization within your app.
• User management: WorkOS offers a comprehensive toolkit for managing the full user lifecycle — adding, updating, and removing users, plus managing roles and permissions. It supports various authentication methods like email/password, social logins, magic links, and MFA. It also includes user provisioning via SCIM and JIT provisioning for automating the onboarding process.
• Admin portal: A fully customizable dashboard that lets enterprise clients independently set up SSO and Directory Sync.
• AuthKit: A customizable hosted UI that supports multiple authentication flows, including SSO, MFA, biometric authentication, passkey authentication, password strength validation, password reset flows, and user session management.

Pros of WorkOS

• Fast enterprise support: WorkOS simplifies adding enterprise-level features like SSO and SCIM provisioning to your apps. With the SDKs, APIs, well-written documentation, and demo apps, you can add these functionalities using just a few lines of code, significantly reducing development time.
• Detailed audit logs: WorkOS's audit logs track every user action, making it easy to stay compliant with standards like HIPAA or GDPR, ensuring you’re always audit-ready.
• Easier directory synchronization: With Directory Sync, user data remains consistent and up-to-date with your client’s directories. WorkOS provides pre-integrations with popular SCIM providers and allows you to create custom SCIM integrations.
• Multiple authentication options: WorkOS supports a variety of authentication methods, including email/password setups, social logins, magic links, and advanced security features like MFA, leaked password protection, password strength validation, and automatic spam plus bot detection.
• Easier customer onboarding: The Admin Portal's self-serve nature allows your enterprise clients to set up SSO or Directory Sync, eliminating much of the back-and-forth between you and their admin team.
• Transparent pricing: WorkOS’s per-company pricing is pretty upfront compared to the MAU pricing that Auth0 and Cognito use. For example, Enterprise SSO is priced at $125 per connection per month, with volume discounts that automatically kick in as you scale. The same goes for Directory Sync — regardless of the identity provider, directory service, or the total number of end users.

Cons of WorkOS

• Potentially overpowered for non-enterprise applications: WorkOS is designed to help applications scale to the enterprise level with features like Single Sign-On (SSO) and Directory Sync. However, these features may be unnecessary for smaller apps targeting general consumers.

Pricing

WorkOS has a per-company pricing model, so you pay a single flat fee for each client connection you set up, regardless of the client's number of employees.

• User management and authentication are free for up to 1 million users
• Custom domains at a flat rate of $99/month
• SSO at $125 per connection/month
• Directory Sync at $125 per connection/month
• Audit logs start at $5 per organization/ month

Estimate your WorkOS bill here.

Who is it suitable for?

WorkOS is best suited for those who need a fast, scalable solution to meet enterprise identity management requirements without the typical overhead (both time and cost) associated with building enterprise-grade features from scratch.

Auth0 vs. Cognito vs. Work OS: Which should you choose?

Choose Cognito if you are deeply embedded in the AWS ecosystem and value seamless integration with other AWS services. 

Opt for Auth0 if you need a versatile, customizable authentication solution that scales with your user base — just keep an eye on potentially rising costs. 

If you aim to get enterprise-ready fast and close your first big client, pick WorkOS. Features like Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO), Directory Sync, and a customizable Admin Portal simplify onboarding and user management for all your customers. Plus, WorkOS’s pricing is clear and scales with your needs, so you won’t get surprises as you grow.

Next steps

Ready to get enterprise-ready? Use WorkOS.

• Get started fast: With SDKs in every popular language, easy-to-follow documentation, and Slack-based support, you can implement SSO in minutes rather than weeks.
• Support every protocol: With OAuth 2.0 integrations to popular providers like Google and Microsoft, compatibility with every major IdP, and full support for custom SAML/OIDC connections, WorkOS can support any enterprise customer.
• Avoid the back-and-forth: WorkOS’s Admin Portal takes the pain out of onboarding your customers’ IT teams and configuring your app to work with their identity provider.
• Pricing that makes sense: Unlike competitors who price by monthly active users, WorkOS charges a flat rate for each company you onboard — whether they bring 10 or 10,000 SSO users to your app.

Sign up for WorkOS today, and start selling to enterprise customers tomorrow.