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ZOREAL

ZOREAL Identify

Alternatives to Amazon Cognito

AWS describes Amazon Cognito as a service that "helps you implement secure sign-in and access control for users, AI agents, and microservices in minutes": a user pool is a user directory and an OAuth 2.0 identity provider that authenticates local users or reads a federated provider’s token, then issues its own access, ID and refresh tokens. ZOREAL Identify is a "Continue with ZOREAL" button on standard OpenID Connect, backed by the ZOREAL ID credential, that returns a pairwise pseudonymous identifier for a human verified against a government document chip, with the assurance of each login stated in the token. This page sets the two side by side: where each sits in the stack, what each token proves about the person, and what each costs.

Information last reviewed 10 September 2026. Compared: Amazon Cognito user pools (sign-in, federation and token issuance) with ZOREAL Identify. Cognito identity pools (AWS credentials for federated users), the rest of the AWS platform and Amazon’s segment revenue are out of scope.

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Where ZOREAL Identify and Amazon Cognito differ

  • The guarantee

    ZOREAL guarantees that the person is real, is not an AI, exists, and is linked to a government-issued ID. One hundred percent, not ninety-nine point nine. ZOREAL is the only solution in the world today that can give that guarantee.

  • Bridging directory, or verifying provider

    AWS states that "your user pool acts as a bridge between multiple service providers and your app": Cognito reads an upstream token’s claims into a user profile and issues its own JWTs, so what its token proves is the local credential or the federated provider’s result. ZOREAL is an upstream OpenID Connect provider; a user pool can federate to it, record the ZOREAL provider and the pairwise subject in the identities claim, and keep issuing Cognito tokens to the app.

  • What is known about the person

    Any identity proofing, document verification or liveness is not stated in the Cognito materials we reviewed; the user pool authenticates a password, passkey or one-time code, or relays a social, SAML or OIDC provider. ZOREAL builds the document chip read, the face match and the liveness capture into enrolment, and states per login in acr and amr whether a fresh capture, a registered hardware key or a remembered session authenticated this session.

  • Per user, or only when disclosing

    Cognito’s Lite and Essentials tiers include 10,000 monthly active users free for new user pools; Essentials is "$0.015" per MAU above that, Plus "$0.020", and SAML or OIDC federated users "$0.015" per MAU above 50 free (aws.amazon.com/cognito/pricing, USD, September 2026). ZOREAL: Free to enrol, free Tier A logins; only Tier B logins charged; there is no per-MAU meter, and current prices are on the ZOREAL price list at zoreal.com/pricing.

Side by side

Comparison of ZOREAL Identify and Amazon Cognito, based on public materials reviewed on 10 September 2026.

AttributeZOREAL IdentifyAmazon Cognito
Role in the stackAn upstream OpenID Connect identity provider at id.zoreal.com; the relying party redirects, the holder approves on their phone, and a stock OIDC library validates the ID token against ZOREAL’s JWKS. ZOREAL is not a user directory for the relying party’s own users."Amazon Cognito is a user directory and an OAuth 2.0 identity provider (IdP)." When connected to social, SAML or OIDC providers, "your user pool acts as a bridge between multiple service providers and your app" (Cognito developer guide).
How the identity is boundEnrolment, in the ZOREAL ID app: the document is photographed, its machine-readable zone read and its chip read over NFC. The server re-runs Passive Authentication against its own trust store built from the ICAO Public Key Directory, so the issuing country’s signature over the data is checked on ZOREAL’s side, and the chip proves possession of its private key. A liveness capture with presentation-attack detection is face-matched 1:1 against the chip portrait. The device key is generated in the phone’s hardware, its attestation is verified at registration, and every evidence call carries an app-integrity assertion. Each verified document yields two holder certificates over that key under ZOREAL’s two roots (ECDSA P-384 and ML-DSA-87), one pseudonymous and one carrying the legal name, valid until the document expires. Login: ZOREAL is the OpenID Provider. The holder approves on their phone, a stock OIDC library validates the ID token against ZOREAL’s JWKS, the relying party sets the assurance per request with acr_values, max_age and prompt, and a request that cannot meet its floor is denied, never downgraded. The subject is pairwise per sector, so one ZOREAL ID is reused at every service without being linkable across them; consent is remembered per sector and re-prompted on any new scope.The user pool authenticates a local user (password, passkey, one-time code) or reads a federated identity provider’s token, creates a user profile, and issues its own JWTs. Social sign-in is "through Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple", plus OpenID Connect and SAML providers (Cognito developer guide). A document check or liveness is not stated in the public materials we reviewed.
What the token provesTwo halves. Proof that a real human is there: the ID token asserts this is one human (not one account, not one device), with the strength of that claim in a uniqueness field; that a government document chip was read and its authenticity verified, at the month given; and how this session was authenticated, in acr and amr, whether a live human was captured for this login, a registered device key was used, or a session was reused. And, when the relying party requests it and the person consents on the phone, the verified identity: name, birthdate and document details read from the chip, served from userinfo to a confidential client with a verified domain. The person sees every requested claim before approving, and the relying party receives only the scopes it was granted. It is not KYC, not a legal signature, not proof that the person consented freely, and not proof that the person is the one operating the browser.The local credential or the upstream provider’s result. The ID token carries an identities claim with the provider and the person’s provider ID (Cognito developer guide).
GuaranteeZOREAL guarantees that the person is real, is not an AI, exists, and is linked to a government-issued ID. One hundred percent, not ninety-nine point nine.Not stated in the public materials we reviewed (Amazon Cognito product page, pricing, developer guide on third-party identity providers).
Who issues the credentialZOREAL is the issuer of the ID card: a reusable identity credential that logs in to other websites, with the person controlling the scopes each login discloses.The user pool issues its own access, ID and refresh tokens after a local sign-in or after reading a federated provider’s token (Cognito developer guide).
Identity proofingBuilt into enrolment (document photographed, machine-readable zone read, chip read over NFC and verified server-side, flash-plus-zoom liveness capture face-matched 1:1 to the chip portrait) and, on request through acr_values, into a login: a live floor requires a presence attestation minted after scoring a fresh capture, and a pairing that cannot meet its floor is denied, never downgraded.Not stated in the public materials we reviewed (Amazon Cognito product page, pricing, developer guide).
Cost to enrolEnrolment in the ZOREAL ID app is always free for the person holding the identity: document scan, chip read and liveness enrollment, re-enrollment, recovery and revocation. Every Tier A login is free without limit on every plan: the pairwise identifier, the assurance block, age-threshold answers and nationality, with 1 client configuration on Free. Answering an identity request is always free for the person.The relying party’s users are created in the user pool or arrive through federation; Lite and Essentials include 10,000 monthly active users per month free for new user pools (pools created before 22 November 2024 keep 50,000), and SAML or OIDC federation includes 50 MAU free (aws.amazon.com/cognito/pricing, USD, September 2026).
Cost per sign-inEnrolment is free: "The ZOREAL ID app is always free for the person holding the identity, from enrollment to recovery", and "Document scan, chip read and liveness enrollment" is "Always free" on Free and Premium. Every Tier A login is free, without limit, on every plan: the pairwise identifier, the assurance block, age-threshold answers and nationality (openid, zoreal.age and zoreal.nationality, available to every registered client). Tier A logins are never charged. A charge applies only to a qualified Tier B login, where the relying party requests identity disclosure (the profile scopes, name, birthdate and document details, and email, which require a verified domain, a confidential client and client authentication), on Premium: "Identify · Identity disclosure", "Name, birth date and document details", "One charge for name, birth date or document details, even when several are returned"; "Identify · Fresh-liveness login", "Coming soon"; "Content and contract signing authorization", "Coming soon". Client configurations per website or app: 1 on Free, 10 on Premium; private-key JWT and mTLS client authentication on Premium. Premium is priced per user, monthly or yearly, with two months free on yearly billing; every organization member is a paid Premium seat; metered usage is charged separately. Enterprise: contact us. Answering an identity request is always free for the person. Current prices are on the ZOREAL price list at zoreal.com/pricing. ZOREAL Identify is the cheapest way to do KYC in the market: free to enrol, free to check, paid only for the higher disclosure tiers.Priced per monthly active user, not per sign-in. Lite: "$0.0055" per MAU for the first 90,000 above the free tier, then "$0.0046"; Essentials: "$0.015" per MAU; Plus: "$0.020" per MAU with no free tier for direct sign-in; SAML or OIDC federated users: "$0.015" per MAU above 50 free, on all tiers (aws.amazon.com/cognito/pricing, USD, standard regions, September 2026). A ZOREAL login through Cognito counts as an OIDC federated user.
Standards and certificationsOpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 from the provider at id.zoreal.com. Organization-level, as zoreal.com lists them for Bynn Intelligence, Inc.: SOC 2 (attestation), PCI DSS (SAQ A), GDPR (data protection), ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (information security certification) and CSA STAR Level One (cloud security self-assessment). No Identify-specific certification or scheme recognition is stated on zoreal.com as of September 2026.OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect and SAML 2.0 (Cognito developer guide). Compliance attestations for Cognito specifically, and data retention for user pool records, are not stated in the public materials we reviewed.

Third-party details on this page reflect what each provider publicly stated on the review date shown above and may have changed since. Where a provider does not state something publicly, this page says so rather than assuming. Statements about what Amazon Cognito offers reflect its public materials on the review date; absence of a feature from those materials does not mean it is unavailable. ZOREAL's current prices are on the ZOREAL price list.

Where ZOREAL Identify and Amazon Cognito agree

Cognito gives an application a convenient hosted sign-in for its users at no cost up to 10,000 monthly active users, with the identities of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and enterprise providers reused through federation and an identifier plus profile handed to the app. ZOREAL Identify is also free for the person from enrolment onward and free for basic sign-ins on every plan. Both are OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect, and both issue signed JWTs the application must verify.

The two occupy different layers. Cognito is the app’s directory and token issuer; ZOREAL is an identity provider that a user pool can federate to like any other OIDC provider, mapping ZOREAL’s claims into the profile and recording the provider in the identities claim. A relying party on Cognito keeps Cognito’s tokens and adds ZOREAL’s assurance. Neither asserts a legal signature, and neither is KYC.

What differs is the assurance behind the identifier. Cognito’s token proves the local credential or the federated provider’s result, with no document check or liveness stated; ZOREAL’s token states that a human was verified against a government document chip and how this particular login was authenticated. Because Cognito’s attribute mapping copies upstream claims into a stored profile, a relying party that needs per-login assurance reads the fresh ZOREAL token rather than the copied attribute.

ZOREAL Identify may fit you if

  • You need to know that a real human verified against a government document chip is behind the account, with the strength of each login stated in acr and amr
  • You want a pairwise identifier per sector and no personal data in the ID token
  • You want age thresholds and nationality as yes-or-no answers without a birthdate, on the free tier
  • You want Tier A logins free without limit and a charge only on a Tier B login where identity is disclosed, rather than a per-MAU meter

Amazon Cognito may fit you if

  • Your application already runs on AWS and you want the user directory next to it, with tokens the rest of your AWS stack consumes
  • You need SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect federation with per-MAU pricing and 10,000 monthly active users free
  • You want managed login (the hosted UI) and social sign-in through Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple from one user pool
  • You do not need assurance about the person behind the account from the directory itself

Other alternatives to Amazon Cognito

35 more vendors compared under ZOREAL Identify, from their own public materials.

All 36 Identify comparisons

Common questions

How we compared

This comparison is based on publicly available information from Amazon Cognito’s official website, documentation, pricing and published materials, and on ZOREAL’s own published product pages and pricing, as reviewed on 10 September 2026. Features, pricing and availability may change at any time. Verify current details directly with each provider before deciding.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. Which electronic signature method satisfies which law, what level of identity assurance a regulation requires, and whether a content signature or provenance mark meets a given standard all depend on the jurisdiction and the regulator’s guidance. ZOREAL Sign asserts no legal effect for the signatures it records. Confirm your obligations with qualified counsel before choosing a method.

Sources

ZOREAL is operated by Bynn Intelligence, Inc. and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Amazon Cognito. Third-party names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used only to identify the products being compared.

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A product walkthrough, pricing or volume terms, with the ZOREAL team.

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