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Cisco Duo vs RSA Authentication Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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
59
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
RSA Authentication Manager
Ranking in Authentication Systems
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 9.8%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Authentication Manager is 1.8%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

RyanDeppe - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps reduce the risk of a breach and is easy to deploy and onboard
For our customers, Duo Security is a significant advantage because it provides them with a straightforward method to implement MFA across their entire environment. Moreover, once we delve into the more advanced features of Duo Security, it enables us as a partner to engage in ongoing discussions regarding security strategies with our customers. Initially, we may only introduce them to MFA during the onboarding process. However, as their security strategy evolves, we can leverage Duo to perform additional tasks such as risk-based assessments and deployments, thereby assisting in the development of their security measures. Duo Security helps secure our infrastructure. It serves as our gateway layer of protection, allowing us to understand who is logging in and why. We conduct risk-based assessments on each user to determine whether their actions are appropriate or not. Duo Security is not a comprehensive security solution, but it is undoubtedly a crucial component, a critical layer of security. This aspect resonates with our customers consistently. Their ability to reduce the risk of a breach is of utmost importance. It serves as the primary line of defense. Currently, credential gathering and leaks are widespread in the market. By implementing an MFA solution like Duo Security, we can effectively prevent these issues. When we put a stop to credential harvesting, it becomes much harder for attackers to infiltrate and navigate our network. Therefore, Duo Security acts as an excellent first line of defense. User authentication and device verification are the methods through which we envision our customers navigating in order to prevent identity-based attacks. Initially, when we employ Duo Security, it is a straightforward implementation of multi-factor authentication. As we progress, we enhance security measures by incorporating device risk assessment and potentially even regional assessment. This includes considerations such as whether the login is being attempted from a specific IP address. These gradual enhancements contribute to the establishment of an additional layer of protection. Thus, it is not necessary to implement a completely disruptive strategy right from the start. Instead, it is possible to gradually adopt and integrate this approach, following a crawl, walk, or run methodology. The Duo Security self-service portal helps free up our customers' IT staff time, allowing them to focus on other projects. As a Cisco partner, we have received feedback from our customers that the portal is highly interactive, enabling them to easily navigate and resolve issues. After setting up their Duo environment, we rarely receive callbacks for assistance, as the portal is intuitive and empowers users to handle everything they need on their own. The appealing aspect of Duo Security is its ability to establish trust for every access request, regardless of its origin. It is a cloud-based solution with excellent API integrations. It doesn't matter where or how a user logs in; Duo will be there to protect the user, whether it's through MFA, risk assessment, or similar methods. It is extremely beneficial to our customers that Duo Security considers all resources as external. Our customers frequently inquire about a zero-trust model, and this is a key component of it. Unfortunately, I would love to say that there is a simple solution for zero trust where we can just deploy this solution and be done with it. But that's not the case. It requires a layered approach, and that's what we convey to our customers. Duo Security is definitely a part of that. Duo Security has helped improve our customers' cybersecurity resilience. Internally, it protects our users from accessing sales operations-based environments. Additionally, our customers use it regularly to protect business-critical applications.
Akinwale Sekiteri - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly effective and versatile solution that excels in terms of security, integration, scalability, and customer support
I highly recommend it because when you compare RSA with other products, it has consistently stood out. In the past, one area where people encountered challenges was in terms of price flexibility, but it significantly improved. You can now negotiate, discuss terms, and work with it to achieve a pricing arrangement that suits your needs, and if they recognize you as a loyal customer, they are more than willing to accommodate your requirements and reach mutually agreeable terms. Overall, I would rate it around nine out of ten when considering factors like durability, data performance, scalability, integration, and security, and excels in these areas.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable aspect is the authentication and the SSO."
"The ability for users to authenticate via phone, from any random phone number, has been very helpful for managing a distributed workforce. Using it across a distributed network for securing access to our applications is big for us."
"Duo Security improved my organization by helping us secure all access points within the company infrastructure."
"The single pane of glass management is very important and it is part of the reason we went with Duo. Anything we can do to save time for our administrators, help desk staff, and engineers, is valuable to us."
"The app has greater stability than rival solutions such as Google Authenticator, and Duo Push authentication is a valuable feature."
"It was a simple way of providing two-factor authentication for remote access when we hit the COVID pandemic. It was very easy and quick to get it going."
"The most valuable features of Duo Security are visibility and OTP authentication. The OTP is very important because it is a self-enrollment feature, you are able to enroll users very quickly with a shorter time period."
"Cisco is the perfect product for our current size, and I don't think we'll have problems with scalability as we grow."
"It stands out as a comprehensive and adaptable solution that excels in both on-premises and cloud-based authentication, offers strong security with multi-layered authentication, and boasts a well-maintained product with reliable performance."
"It is a good solution for token identification."
"I have found RSA Authentication Manager to be scalable."
"It is a stable solution. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten."
"RSA Authentication Manager is the best available solution."
"RSA Authentication Manager is a robust solution that provides comprehensive protection for both on-premise and cloud-based applications."
"Easy setup, deployment, and integration in different infrastructures, including virtual ones."
"The most valuable feature is the SecurID."
 

Cons

"The technical engineers in the first line of support should improve their knowledge."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Duo Security could be improved with the addition of more applications."
"From an administrative standpoint, I'd love to see it be a little better at remembering a device and location so that I don't have to continually authenticate. That's pretty much it."
"Cisco can further enhance the integrations, as they possess exceptional integrations with various providers' products and feature sets."
"I'd like to see it integrated into other applications. I know there are some integrations, but I haven't been able to explore that any further."
"There is room for improvement in the RSA support."
"RSA Authentication Manager is perfect. We do not see current missing products or enhancements yet emphasize the importance of a continuous development roadmap."
"We are not planning on using the solution in the future."
"The product's capabilities to protect cloud environments need improvement."
"We found technical support was not very responsive to our requests for assistance."
"Perhaps parts of the the user interface should become more intuitive."
"Our major problem is the authentication via Microsoft, via Microsoft cloud systems. This is our major aim, to be a valued product for the future. The biggest problem is to work against cheap cloud systems. Cloud identification is our main problem at this time."
"We have encountered issue when trying to expand this particular solution for a large set of users across the country."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing was a lot more than what we were paying for our previous solution."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"Price-wise, the solution has been very, very reasonable...Licensing is the last thing I think about Duo Security because it's so easy, and I had no problems with it."
"The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."
"Its price is reasonable. It is not highly expensive."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"The licensing is very good because it does not cost a lot of money. It's affordable for all-sized customers, including enterprises. There is an additional cost for premium support."
"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
"The pricing is a little bit complicated because sometimes resellers are able to make prices that are too low. Our price, with a discount, is typically not as high as some of our competitors."
"As a new customer, the minimum cost would be four dollars, but you have room for negotiation, potentially bringing it down to as low as three dollars."
"The solution is costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
The setup cost is reasonable, estimated at around six euros per month.
What do you like most about RSA Authentication Manager?
It stands out as a comprehensive and adaptable solution that excels in both on-premises and cloud-based authentication, offers strong security with multi-layered authentication, and boasts a well-m...
What needs improvement with RSA Authentication Manager?
RSA Authentication Manager is perfect. We do not see current missing products or enhancements yet emphasize the importance of a continuous development roadmap.
What is your primary use case for RSA Authentication Manager?
We use RSA Authentication Manager for web applications and internal applications. We have a number of applications connected to it, serving over thirty thousand clients. It is integrated into every...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
ACE/Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Tiera, Fred Loya, BRE Leasing, ADP, BlueFort Security, New Hanover County
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. RSA Authentication Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.