Cisco Duo vs RSA Adaptive Authentication comparison

Cisco and RSA are both solutions in the Authentication Systems category. Cisco is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8, while RSA is ranked #27. Cisco holds a 5.3% mindshare in AS, compared to RSA’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of RSA users who would recommend it.

Cisco Duo

Read 86 Cisco Duo reviews

6,543 Views
4,711 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Read 6 RSA Adaptive Authentication reviews

625 Views
544 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Cisco Duo

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Cisco Duo and RSA Adaptive Authentication are two key products in the identity authentication market. Cisco Duo stands out with user satisfaction in pricing and support, while RSA Adaptive Authentication excels in features and is perceived as worth the investment.

What features are offered by Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo's valuable features include ease of integration, robust security measures, and straightforward deployment. RSA Adaptive Authentication offers comprehensive risk-based authentication, extensive analytics capabilities, and advanced threat identification and prevention. Users find RSA Adaptive Authentication's features more beneficial due to its advanced security functionalities.

What areas of improvement can be found in Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo users suggest enhancements in multi-device management, request more detailed reporting, and better scalability options. RSA Adaptive Authentication users highlight the need for a more intuitive setup process, improved customer support, and a more user-friendly interface. Overall, Cisco Duo's areas for improvement are less significant compared to RSA Adaptive Authentication's larger setup challenges.

How is the ease of deployment and customer service of Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo users appreciate its straightforward deployment and proactive customer service. In contrast, RSA Adaptive Authentication faces criticism for its complex deployment process and less responsive support. Cisco Duo is recognized for being easier to deploy and having superior customer service.

What setup costs and ROI can be seen with Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo offers competitive setup costs and a clear ROI. RSA Adaptive Authentication requires a higher initial investment but delivers strong long-term ROI through advanced security features. While Cisco Duo is more cost-effective initially, RSA Adaptive Authentication's ROI justifies its higher price.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication

December 2025

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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

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Access Management (4th), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Ranking in Authentication Systems

27th

Average Rating

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 5.3%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Adaptive Authentication is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Authentication Systems Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco Duo	5.3%
RSA Adaptive Authentication	1.2%
Other	93.5%

Authentication Systems

Featured Reviews

Charles Slaustas

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.

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Directorc4e7

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…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Duo offers dual-factor authentication for our logins. I put in my credentials and hit go. Then I get an alert on my Apple watch, and I approve it. That part is just phenomenal."

"It's easy to deploy. It's easy to manage. It's easy to integrate with other applications."

"The authentication process is very smooth and secure."

"What I most appreciate about Cisco Duo is the ease of use."

"I can recommend Cisco Duo because it is very easy to accept and understand."

"The product is reliable and easy to use."

"It has continuously evolved by introducing new solutions and products to address emerging security threats in our industry, demonstrating its commitment to staying ahead of evolving security challenges."

"Cisco Duo has benefited our company overall by giving us the ability to have multi-factor authentication."

More Cisco Duo pros

"The capability to manage your business policy related to security when required without vendor involvement."

"The most valuable feature is the stock tokens. That works the best for us."

"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."

"Risk Engine’s risk score, eFN, GeoIP, and device binding all coming together in the Policy Rules to decide when to escalate to MFA."

"Ingestion of logs and raising alert space on those logs are the most valuable features."

Cons

"I would like to see Duo Security increase the time that the users have to log into the devices. The maximum time interval is 50 minutes at the moment, and I would like it to be 60 minutes. When you try to log into a device and have to authenticate yourself, sometimes it's not very pleasant. It's not the best thing particularly if you have to do this every 50 minutes, which is the maximum time that Duo gives. This makes it difficult to use and does not save time."

"We found it difficult to integrate it into our broader product family of Microsoft tools and other applications used across our organization."

"Its documentation must be in French because we are a French-speaking country. They should also provide more training documentation. Its management interface should also be improved. They should also improve its update period. If I compare its update period with other products such as Palo Alto firewalls, this solution is really slow in updates."

"Duo has some issues that we're trying to work through. For example, if I install it on a WordPress site and another admin needs to log in, they can't because Duo hasn't been set up for them. It doesn't appear that I can add permissions on a user-by-user basis. It's not obvious."

"It could be a little bit more intuitive when it comes to the sign-up process. I know they send out an email, but sometimes our users get a little confused. It could be an end-user problem, but Cisco could work on that a little."

"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."

"There was an issue related to integration with third parties."

More Cisco Duo cons

"I would like to see a more adaptive type of solution, something that we could use on our web pages..."

"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."

"RSA Adaptive Authentication lacks a mechanism to verify the identity of a new user in the Enrollment event workflow."

"It has taken years to implement."

"Reporting modules is one of the major areas that can be improved further."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Duo Security is free."

"Duo Security's pricing is good, fair, and very comparable to today's market."

"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."

"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."

"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."

"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."

"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."

"Our licensing fee is currently on an annual basis."

More Cisco Duo pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The pricing is $50 per head, yearly."

"Keep the proxy service layer on premises. That consumes SaaS security services on the back-end."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	40

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that one of the most powerful features is the licensing model and the price. According to the pricing, it is really fantastic to get th...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Duo Security?

One downside of Cisco Duo is the expense, as there are clients that can afford only the basic package, which does not include Geo-fencing, leaving them unable to pay for the more expensive level, w...

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Comparisons

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Duo

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Cisco Duo

Compared 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiToken vs Cisco Duo

Compared 6% of the time

Yubico YubiKey vs Cisco Duo

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco Duo

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Duo Competitors

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 18% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 16% of the time

RSA Authentication Manager vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 14% of the time

Symantec Advanced Authentication vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 11% of the time

Yubico YubiKey vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 9% of the time

More RSA Adaptive Authentication Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo

January 2026

Download Cisco Duo product report

Buyer's Guide

Authentication Systems

January 2026

Download RSA Adaptive Authentication product report

Also Known As

Duo Security

No data available

Overview

Cisco Duo is a cloud-based identity security platform safeguarding critical resources for any user and device worldwide. Known for its ease of use, Duo offers seamless protection across multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments.

Cisco Duo is designed to secure access with identity-first protection and provides extensive visibility throughout an organization's identity ecosystem. Offering multi-factor authentication, Duo facilitates easy integration and management, allowing teams to protect data effectively on VPNs, applications, and networks. Its single-pane management improves security processes while enhancing trust, making it suitable for diverse IT infrastructures.

What are the key features of Cisco Duo?

Multi-factor Authentication: Strengthens user verification with multiple methods.
Push Notifications: Simplifies authentication with quick approvals.
Single Sign-On: Enhances convenience by allowing one set of credentials.
VPN Access: Secures remote connections with reliable authentication.
User Activity Visibility: Offers comprehensive insights into access patterns.

Which benefits and ROI should users consider?

Quick Deployment: Facilitates rapid integration within existing systems.
Effective Management: Streamlines IT operations with centralized control.
Regulatory Compliance: Aids in meeting industry standards for data protection.
Enhanced Trust: Strengthens security posture across networks.
User-friendly Approach: Simplifies authentication for non-technical users.

In industries like education and finance, Cisco Duo is widely employed to secure multi-factor authentication across platforms such as email, databases, and servers. Its integration capabilities with Microsoft 365, Active Directory, and VPNs like AnyConnect are instrumental in verifying user identities using mobile apps or OTPs, catering effectively to both remote and on-premise environments.

Cisco

RSA Adaptive Authentication is a risk-based two-factor authentication solution providing cost-effective protection for an entire user base. Adaptive Authentication secures online portals, SSL VPNs, and web access management portals for different types of organizations in the healthcare, insurance, enterprise, government, financial services, and other industries. Based on the transparent two-factor authentication technology, Adaptive Authentication works behind the scenes to authenticate end users and transactions based on individual end user and device profiles. In addition, Adaptive Authentication uses the RSA Risk Engine to estimate the level of risk for the specific activity and uses information collected from the RSAeFraudNetwork (a cross-organization, cross-application, cross-border online fraud network) to identify fraudulent activities. The Policy Manager determines what actions must be performed, depending on the risk score and other parameters.

RSA

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ADP, Ameritas, Partners Healthcare

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication

December 2025

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