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Cisco Duo vs One Identity Defender comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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
7.9
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (2nd)
One Identity Defender
Ranking in Authentication Systems
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 9.3%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of One Identity Defender is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Botts - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing security policies effectively with seamless authentication
The feature of Cisco Duo that I prefer the most is the policies, being able to control what we need to within the policies. You can get pretty granular. There isn't a lot of training that goes on in school districts. Email is an easy way where many people give out their credentials, so the level of protection is something that we definitely need in a school district. Cisco Duo's strong security authentication system has been easy when logging in, although the teachers don't appreciate it as much. We have it configured so users essentially just hit accept. If it sees any sort of built-in risk, then it steps up authentication. It's pretty easy. I appreciate it. I've encountered advantages with Cisco Duo in that it has stopped significant pushback from teachers. It has prevented credential sharing and unauthorized access. We've seen a huge decrease since we've rolled it out across the entire district.
Maksym Tkachenko - PeerSpot reviewer
Good compatibility, responsive support, and a nice interface
The solution works very well. The initial setup is pretty easy. It is stable and pretty reliable in general. We find that the product scales very well.  Technical support is responsive. The interface is good.  It is compatible with other products.  It has everything we need right now. The login…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has definitely reduced embedding. We found a lot of problems with attackers being able to compromise accounts. Now, when they try to access accounts, they are not able to do so because there is an added layer of protection. Once we know that a username and password are compromised, we just reset the password to protect the company."
"My overall rating for the solution is ten out of ten."
"Duo Security gives us an additional layer of security that would give us added confidence that our network will be less likely to get hacked, compromised, or otherwise."
"You can do online and offline authentication."
"We get fewer threats to remediate due to the two-factor authentication, which does not allow as many threats through."
"What I most appreciate about Cisco Duo is the ease of use."
"It's a lot easier for our end users to connect to our network. You don't have to type in a code. You get push notifications, that's probably the best thing about it. The fewer clicks they have to do to be online, the better it is. They can easily get into the network and do remote work."
"The feature of Cisco Duo that I prefer the most is the policies, being able to control what we need to within the policies."
"One Identity Defender has good network protection."
"It's very fast, and it's easy to use because it's integrated with Active Directory."
"We find that the product scales very well."
 

Cons

"I'm unsure how to disable the ping notification sound on my phone when using Cisco Duo. I don't know how to silence it."
"There might be a little slowness, but that could be my connection."
"The dashboard needs to be improved."
"For the back-end, there could be a few more security features applied."
"We have a 24 hour timer for our Duo cookie and we would like to reduce this to a shorter time when using Duo."
"Cisco Duo could be improved, possibly by adding features for the healthcare space. If you're selling something to a healthcare provider, there needs to be consideration for how to launch Cisco Duo with a handheld device that is not native, where you can install the application."
"It already integrates with lots of products, but it can integrate with more products. There should be easy integration with Cisco products because sometimes, it can be quite complicated."
"An enhancement they might make is if they can log it to Splunk since they're big into Splunk. Instead of me having to go into that portal to look at things when someone is trying to log in and they forgot their password, I can look in and tell them they forgot their password or didn't respond to the prompt."
"Maybe it could provide support for more web applications. It seems more focused on IIS web applications."
"We have some clients that are wanting to protect their Apache web servers with One Identity Defender but all the research I have done says cannot be done. It can only be oriented to an IIS server. One Identity Defender should have more integration with more types of web servers."
"The login capabilities could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"Our licensing fee is currently on an annual basis."
"The pricing was a lot more than what we were paying for our previous solution."
"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"Cisco's licensing is always a bit complicated to understand, but the price is fair. It could be more expensive than others, but the way they integrate everything, it has a fair price."
"I only need the solution for IT staff, which makes it relatively cheap. If I deployed it for the whole company, it would be costly, so it depends on the number of users. Duo Security is affordable compared to other products in the segment."
"Duo Security is free."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Retailer
13%
Non Profit
11%
Government
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 do you like most about Duo Security?
They are users who, as mentioned before, utilize RDPAP and MDPAP. It includes functionalities related to finance, specifically in single sign-on.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Duo is honestly above my pay grade. I don't know any of that.
What do you like most about One Identity Defender?
It's very fast, and it's easy to use because it's integrated with Active Directory.
What needs improvement with One Identity Defender?
Maybe it could provide support for more web applications. It would be useful to focus on other web applications. For example, if an application needs to be installed on an iOS server and it's not, ...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Defender?
Our primary use cases include functions such as role-based access control, user registration, and integration with other systems. We use it to improve the security of our web applications. Addition...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Bakersfield Police Department, Village of Westmont, Illinois
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. One Identity Defender and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.