Amazon Cognito is a service designed for user authentication, authorization, and management. It enables developers to add user sign-up, sign-in, and access control to web and mobile apps quickly and securely.
AWS Cognito integrates smoothly with other AWS services, enhancing security with minimal code changes required. It also supports integration with social identity providers such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon, along with enterprise identity providers via SAML 2.0.
Cognito’s main components are user pools and identity pools. User pools are user directories that provide sign-up and sign-in options for app users, acting as a complete user database. Identity pools enable developers to grant authenticated users access to other AWS services.
Cognito can be used for any application deployed on AWS, including React applications. We’ll provide a step-by-step tutorial showing how to build a React application using Amazon Lightsail and authenticate it with Cognito.
In this article:
User pools in Amazon Cognito are directories that manage and authenticate users. They provide a secure and scalable user directory that can scale to hundreds of millions of users. Administrators can create customizable sign-up and sign-in processes, enforce strong passwords, and even verify emails and phone numbers.
User pools support a variety of user management features such as authentication, recovery of accounts, and user profile management. Through the use of Lambda triggers, Cognito offers security features like custom authentication flows, which can incorporate captcha or certain knowledge-based authentication questions.
Here’s an overview of how to use AWS Cognito to build a React user authentication app. The code is adapted from the official Cognito documentation.
To get started, you need to create a user pool in Amazon Cognito:
Once the user pool is created, note your User pool ID and App client ID from the App integration tab.
To build the React application, ensure your development environment is set up with the following:
1. Open your terminal and navigate to your project directory:
cd ~/path/to/project/folder/
2. Create a new React application using Vite:
npm create vite@latest frontend-client — –template react-ts
3. Clone the Cognito example project from GitHub:
cd ~/some/other/path
git clone https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples.git
cp -r ./aws-doc-sdk-examples/javascriptv3/example_code/cognito-identity-provider/scenarios/cognito-developer-guide-react-example/frontend-client ~/path/to/project/folder/frontend-client
4. Navigate to the src directory of your project:
cd ~/path/to/project/folder/frontend-client/src
5. Edit config.json to replace the placeholders with your actual AWS region, user pool ID, and app client ID:
{
“region”: “us-east-1”,
“userPoolId”: “us-east-1_xxxxxx8”,
“clientId”: “5p9bbbbbbbbbbbbb9”
}
6. If you need to access your application from an IP other than localhost, edit package.json:
“scripts”: {
“dev”: “vite –host 0.0.0.0”
7. Install the application dependencies:
npm install
8. Launch the application:
npm run dev
9. Open your web browser and access the application at http://localhost:5173 (or the appropriate IP address).
Amazon Lightsail provides an easy way to create a virtual server for your development environment:
You should see something like this:
node -v
npm -v
7. Configure your React application as described in the previous section.
By following these steps, you can create a fully functional React application integrated with AWS Cognito for user authentication.
Related content: Read our guide to AWS Cognito tutorial (coming soon)
When using Cognito for your React applications, you should be aware of the following limitations, reported by users on the G2 platform.
The initial setup can be complicated, especially for those with limited technical expertise. Customizing user flows and configuring advanced functionalities often require a deep understanding of AWS services and Cognito’s architecture. Users must navigate various components, configurations, and options.
The default token expiration settings might not be suitable for all use cases, leading to frequent token renewals and potential user frustration. Although it is possible to adjust token expiration times, the process is not straightforward and requires a good understanding of Cognito’s configuration options.
While Cognito provides basic templates for login screens, these templates are not highly customizable, restricting the ability of developers to fully brand and tailor the user experience. The SDK allows for some degree of customization, but it falls short in offering complete control over the authentication process, such as defining specific scopes during login.
Many users find that the documentation lacks sufficient detail, particularly when dealing with advanced features and integrations. For example, integrating multiple identity providers with a single Cognito account can be confusing due to the sparse and sometimes unclear instructions. This often forces users to rely on community forums or external resources for help.
Pricing for Cognito starts at $0.01 per monthly active user (MAU) and can quickly become costly. Some users have complained about Amazon’s price hike, suggesting that the service doesn’t justify the price, or that other solutions may offer a better ROI. Amazon doesn’t offer a free trial for Cognito.
The industry standard today is to use Authentication providers to “build the door”, but what about Authorization (the door knob)? Most authentication vendors don’t go that extra mile, forcing SaaS vendors to invest in expensive in-house development. This often delays investment in core technology development, which negatively impacts innovation and time-to-market (TTM) metrics.
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