# Accounts, identity and cost: tools in this layer of The Stack

> The AWS foundation. 6 tools, from Nicolas Dao's defaults to what he would never use (Cloudless Labs, Sydney).

- Web page: https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/layers/accounts/

## My default

- [Amazon Cognito](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/aws-cognito/index.md), Authentication: The easiest pick for small apps, internal tools and admin panels. Everything works out of the box and it's free below 10,000 monthly users. For serious apps on Postgres, Better Auth comes first.
- [AWS Backup](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/aws-backup/index.md), Backups: Central backup policies for AWS resources. Neon branches cover the Neon side.
- [AWS Organizations + IAM Identity Center](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/aws-organizations-identity-center/index.md), Accounts and access: Centralised accounts, billing and access. Every client gets this first.
- [Better Auth](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/better-auth/index.md), Authentication library, users in your Postgres: My first pick for serious apps on Postgres. Your users live in your own database, it does more than Cognito, and it costs nothing per user.
- [Cost Explorer (with Claude Code)](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/aws-cost-explorer/index.md), Cost analysis: Where every cost investigation starts. I let Claude Code read it and find the culprit.
- [Savings Plans and Reserved Instances](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/aws-savings-plans/index.md), Cost: My main lever on AWS cost. AWS margins are high; commitments bring them down.

## Related

- [An AWS foundation for a client](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/use-cases/aws-foundation/index.md): a job that picks or avoids tools from this layer
- [Moving on-premises systems to AWS](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/use-cases/migration/index.md): a job that picks or avoids tools from this layer
- [Sign-in and identity](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/use-cases/sign-in/index.md): a job that picks or avoids tools from this layer
- [Every layer, use case and tool in one file](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/brief.md)
- [Map of every Markdown file on cloudlesslabs.com, with what each one answers](https://ask.cloudlesslabs.com)