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Cisco Duo vs Delinea Authentication Service comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Authentication Systems
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (5th), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (3rd)
Delinea Authentication Service
Ranking in Authentication Systems
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Bridge (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.7%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Delinea Authentication Service is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.7%
Delinea Authentication Service0.8%
Other95.5%
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Charles Slaustas - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
Supports seamless authentication for users across multiple organizations and personal portals
The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter. I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.
Francesco Panacea - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at Deloitte Risk Advisory
Offers a reliable platform for securing administrative access and reduces cloud maintenance overhead
I have not found many drawbacks in Delinea Authentication Service, but perhaps they could focus more on the development of the platform for all of the products. I mean, rather than having Secret Server and Privilege Manager as silos, they could have a unique platform. In future updates of this solution, I would like to see features that other PAM vendors are adding, such as machine identities, AI, agentic security, and perhaps certificate security for Delinea. Delinea integrates with third-party tools by having some out-of-the-box connectors, but not for all. Adding more connectors could be an evolution for the next product. Responsiveness could be another area of improvement. They are pretty much slow to respond or perhaps I don't get the answers I want.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Everybody loves it. They feel a sense of security when they get that prompt to send them a text, or an email."
"We're working remotely. It helps us keep people more safe. Its adoption has been fine. I like the fact that you can bypass it if you need to because there are situations where the internet doesn't work, etc."
"Cisco Duo's visibility into identity-based risks has improved our ability to manage security very well."
"I would assess the stability and reliability of Cisco Duo as excellent because once we got it working, we have never had an issue."
"Cisco Duo has improved my operational efficiency and reduced costs by better managing authentication for our clients and helping to reduce potential compromises and brute force attacks."
"It meets our security needs very well. It is easy to use, and documentation is also available. It is also very stable and scalable, and its support is also very good. We are satisfied with this solution."
"The features I value most about Cisco Duo are the push notification and the ability to select how I want to authenticate, and I primarily use the push method."
"The features of Cisco Duo have benefited our organization in terms of security level because before, it was not secure—anybody could get your password and log in—however, with that second layer of defense, it helps us and helps our community."
"The best feature of Delinea Authentication Service, in my opinion, is that Delinea is a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for PAM solutions, particularly with Secret Server, which we used, and also the Privilege Manager."
 

Cons

"Regarding the Premier licensing, it is a little bit pricey, but it is in the market range with the competitors."
"More automation and device insights would be helpful in achieving a seamless single pane of glass. Having the additional capability to streamline processes would also make things better."
"Certain customers can not use this product because it is cloud-based."
"With Cisco Duo, you have to do that, and customers complain about that process. At some point, you need to be technically savvy to understand how to use Cisco Duo."
"Duo Security could be improved with the addition of more applications."
"Reducing or eliminating the "telephony credits" system used by Duo would be great."
"To improve Cisco Duo, the biggest consideration is the licensing standpoint; the most common issue I've found is customers not setting up the Active Directory sync properly, leading to inflated licensing usage when they try to delete inactive users that are still being charged."
"I wish that the support would be a little bit more prompt and a little bit more flexible because there are certain things that they will do and certain things they won't do."
"Responsiveness could be another area of improvement. They are pretty much slow to respond or perhaps I don't get the answers I want."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
"My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been good, with no issues. I am pleased that the prices remained stable after Cisco acquired the solution."
"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Duo has been great. We've been there for 10 years. While we haven't gone through the setup part for a while, licensing is straightforward and convenient for higher education because student populations are included. So, we don't have to pay extra for it. We just pay for our knowledge workers, which has been great, and the cost is reasonable."
"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"Their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing costs."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise82
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
Regarding the pricing, what actually happened was that we got the product purchased through our HQ, so the costing aspect and all those things sit with our HQ. I do not have much information in ter...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
I do not have a straight answer for how Cisco Duo can be improved at this time. With the implementation that we are going through right now, I was asking a question about how we can use Cisco Duo o...
What needs improvement with Delinea Authentication Service?
I have not found many drawbacks in Delinea Authentication Service, but perhaps they could focus more on the development of the platform for all of the products. I mean, rather than having Secret Se...
What is your primary use case for Delinea Authentication Service?
I use the product to secure the system administrators' access to the crown jewels of the customer.
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
Centrify Authentication Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cisco, Okta and others in Authentication Systems. Updated: October 2026.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.