Head-to-head · Authentication & SSO
AWS Cognito vs Keycloak
Which one to pick in 2026 — comparing 🇺🇸 AWS Cognito with the European alternative 🇪🇺 Keycloak on the things that actually decide who can read your data.
🇺🇸 AWS Cognitovs🇪🇺 Keycloak
Verdict
Who has stronger privacy guarantees by law?
Keycloak — GDPR-native and outside the US CLOUD Act / FISA 702 reach.
Which one encrypts your data end-to-end by default?
Neither ships full E2E by default — check the table for nuance.
Which one tracks you for ads?
Neither monetises through ad tracking.
Which one is open source?
Keycloak is open source. AWS Cognito is proprietary.
Side-by-side
AWS Cognito vs Keycloak — full comparison
Criteria
🇪🇺 Keycloak
🇺🇸 AWS Cognito
Headquarters
Open source project — Red Hat (IBM), self-hosted
Seattle, WA, USA
Jurisdiction
EU (GDPR) when self-hosted in EU
USA (CLOUD Act, FISA 702)
Data location
Your EU server
Global, US-controlled (AWS)
GDPR-native
Yes
No
CLOUD Act / FISA exposed
No
Yes
Ad tracking
No
No
End-to-end encryption
No
No
Open source
Yes
No
Ownership
Red Hat (IBM) — Apache 2.0 open source
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Founded
2013
2014
Make the switch
Try Keycloak instead of AWS Cognito
Red Hat's battle-tested open-source IAM — self-host in the EU for enterprise SSO.
Other European alternatives to AWS Cognito