Cedar is a beautiful policy language. But it lives inside AWS.
Amazon Cedar is a purpose-built policy language for authorization — cleaner and more intuitive than Rego, with first-class support for RBAC and ABAC patterns. But Cedar is only available through AWS Verified Permissions — locking your authorization layer to AWS. WardenAuth provides the same authorization capabilities cloud-agnostic, with a dashboard instead of a policy language.
Overview
Cedar's design is genuinely good: it separates authorization into a clean, readable syntax with explicit support for role-based and attribute-based patterns. The policy simulator and schema validation are excellent developer experiences.
But Cedar is a policy language, not a platform. You still need AWS Verified Permissions to run it, and you're locked to the AWS ecosystem. WardenAuth models authorization as structured data — roles, permissions, scopes — managed through a dashboard or API, cloud-agnostic.
Amazon Cedar — Strengths
- Clean, intuitive policy language — purpose-built for authorization
- Schema validation for policies
- Built-in policy simulator
- First-class RBAC and ABAC support
- Open-source policy language (Apache 2.0)
- No Turing-complete footguns (unlike Rego)
Amazon Cedar — Limitations
- Only available through AWS Verified Permissions — AWS lock-in
- Per-request billing through AVP
- Still a policy language to learn — barrier for non-engineers
- No management dashboard — AWS Console only
- No API key management, SoD, or approvals
- No multi-tenancy primitives — separate policy stores required
Pricing comparison
| Scenario | Amazon Cedar | WardenAuth |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Free (open-source, Apache 2.0) | Free (50K checks, managed) |
| Runtime (AVP) | $0.15/1M requests (beyond free tier) | $79/mo (Starter, 1M checks) |
| Management dashboard | AWS Console | Full RBAC dashboard |
Feature comparison
| Feature | Amazon Cedar | WardenAuth |
|---|---|---|
| Fine-grained RBAC | ||
| ABAC / attribute conditions | ||
| Cedar policy language | ||
| ReBAC / relationships | ||
| Management dashboard | AWS Console | |
| Audit trail | CloudTrail (separate) | |
| API key management | ||
| Multi-tenant scopes | ||
| SoD / Approval workflows | ||
| Cloud-agnostic | ||
| Self-hosted deployment | Available (Enterprise) | |
| Flat-rate pricing |
When each makes sense
Choose Cedar (via AWS Verified Permissions) if you're fully committed to AWS, want a clean policy language for authorization, and don't need multi-cloud portability. Cedar is genuinely better-designed than Rego for authorization use cases.
Choose WardenAuth if you want authorization cloud-agnostic — run on AWS, GCP, Azure, or self-hosted. If you prefer a visual dashboard over a policy language, or need features Cedar/AVP does not provide: API key management, SoD constraints, audit trails, and webhooks.
Cedar is the best-designed authorization policy language available today — cleaner than Rego, purpose-built for the domain. If you're all-in on AWS, it's an excellent choice via Verified Permissions. If you need cloud-agnostic authorization with a full management platform, WardenAuth provides the same capabilities without the AWS lock-in.
See for yourself — no credit card required.