A managed service that handles user sign-up, login, password recovery, and identity verification so developers don't have to build these from scratch. Like hiring a security company to manage building access instead of installing your own locks and badge system.
A SaaS startup uses Amazon Cognito to add Google and Facebook login to their app, manage user accounts, and issue secure tokens — handling millions of sign-ins without writing any authentication code from scratch.
All provide managed user identity features like sign-up/sign-in and token-based authentication. Cognito, Entra External ID, and GCP Identity Platform are purpose-built for customer-facing app authentication (CIAM) with social login and user pools. OCI IAM is primarily for managing identities and access to OCI resources; it can support authentication patterns but is not a direct CIAM equivalent for end-user app sign-up/sign-in.