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Cisco Duo vs RSA Adaptive Authentication comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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
120
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
RSA Adaptive Authentication
Ranking in Authentication Systems
26th
Average Rating
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 4.3%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Adaptive Authentication is 1.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo4.3%
RSA Adaptive Authentication1.5%
Other94.2%
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.
Directorc4e7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Cyber Security at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
We need better ease of use; the product is overly complicated
There are many use cases that we have defined based on our business needs Ingestion of logs and raising alert space on those logs are the most valuable features. The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated. It has taken years to implement. We used RSA…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that my organization started using more recently in Cisco Duo is offline authentication."
"It's easy to use for the security part, and it helps to improve our security posture."
"The push notifications and the integrations they offer are valuable. Their mobile app is very useful. It is very easy to use."
"Duo features benefit my company by making logins more secure and simpler. Everything is in one box, so we don't have multiple servers trying to do the same thing."
"Cisco Duo is a simple and effective tool that gives detailed information about users who connect to your domain."
"All features of the solution are effective, Duo supports BYOD policies by allowing users to authenticate securely from their personal devices."
"Cisco Duo is very easy to deploy and the documentation is very thorough, which makes deployment straightforward."
"Looking back at my initial investment in Cisco Duo versus the total value it has delivered over time, that choice has paid off for my company massively."
"Once we started adopting these products, we've seen the fraud losses go down considerably."
"Our customer are seeing value from the product, as they experience cost reductions. They can stop fraud from their customers, then their customers can have a better experience from their services."
"It has reduced false positives greatly in our fraud detection ability."
"The most valuable feature is the stock tokens. That works the best for us."
"The most valuable feature is the stock tokens, which work the best for us."
"Ingestion of logs and raising alert space on those logs are the most valuable features."
"One of the most valuable features is the fraud detection capability with minimal friction in the customer experience."
"Risk Engine’s risk score, eFN, GeoIP, and device binding all coming together in the Policy Rules to decide when to escalate to MFA."
 

Cons

"They could just continue to add more integrations."
"I wouldn't mind seeing some options for remembering a device for a short period of time or a specific login, particularly for administrative engineering staff, as we may be logging in to four or five different services."
"My experience with Cisco Duo's strong security authentication system is that sometimes there are difficulties, and sometimes users just won't be able to log in. We have to reset their password so they can use Duo."
"We were considering purchasing other products, like AMP for Endpoints, and it was not properly integrated with the firewall function. It might be better now with SecureX."
"Often, people do not receive expiration messages, and sometimes, for security reasons, accounts get disabled without notifying the end user, so they mistakenly think something has gone wrong when it really just needs to be re-enabled on the external system."
"The only issue I encountered was related to the expiration of Duo Unix versions below 2.0.3 on February 3rd."
"The cost will become expensive for large user accounts."
"I think that the dashboard needs to be improved."
"RSA Adaptive Authentication lacks a mechanism to verify the identity of a new user in the Enrollment event workflow."
"The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated."
"Better filters when searching for events. The current features for current filters when searching fraud events are not very comprehensive. You can only filter by certain fields in the transaction."
"Reporting modules is one of the major areas that can be improved further."
"The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated."
"It has taken years to implement."
"It's an okay solution. It's just old technology and it's time to move on."
"I would like to see a more adaptive type of solution, something that we could use on our web pages..."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"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."
"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."
"It's a bit confusing because we're on a three-year plan with a certain number of licenses, and we've gone over that number. They told us that when we renew, they will add all these licenses. We've expanded quickly, so everyone's kind of scared because no one knows what the bill is with the long pricing cycle."
"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."
"From a reseller perspective, it's still challenging to explain the whole license strategy to a client, so we really have to be ahead of that for all the true forward conversations."
"It is affordable for what's coming to the table with it, but in this day and age, the cost is looked at under a microscope, and companies need to very finely define what is needed versus what is critical. In some cases, it might not be cost-effective for a company to have it. In a lot of other cases, it is the cost of doing business."
"It's very simple. Its price is fair. We use the hardware tokens as well. You get what you pay for. In terms of licensing, Cisco has very complicated products, but Duo Security was surprisingly easy."
"Customers need to deploy the solution in a very expensive infrastructure. RSA should should think about a less expensive infrastructure for customers because the solution costs around $100,000, and the infrastructure needed to support that solution may be even more expensive than that price."
"You may need to opt for second best if funding is low and the number of users is huge. However, the pricing is able to be negotiated if your user figures are huge."
"Keep the proxy service layer on premises. That consumes SaaS security services on the back-end."
"The pricing is $50 per head, yearly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise58
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

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?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Cisco Duo shows that it is a cost above our Entra costs, which we are always reviewing. The benefits outweigh the cost in terms of its ...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
I believe Cisco Duo needs to be improved on the delay process because there is a delay when we send a Duo Push or when we are signing into any applications. We can work on making it faster and spee...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ADP, Ameritas, Partners Healthcare
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.