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Cisco Duo vs Safe-T Secure Application Access 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

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cisco Duo
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), Authentication Systems (2nd), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
Safe-T Secure Application A...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (37th), Access Management (30th), ZTNA (19th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
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.
it_user787671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer
Needs to be easier to configure and to display logs more simply
We use only it for scanning files for viruses. That's the only feature we use in this product It needs to be easier to configure, it should be something that's working well with other sources. It should be something that allows me to see the logs simply. One to three years. Sometimes it doesn't…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"The iboss solution gives me the ability to scan the traffic through all the ports, through all the 131,000 PCP and UDP ports, and with this ability, we have the granularity also for consults over social media and applications on mobile, and this is an advantage that the customers are looking for right now."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Overall, it provides functionality and security with the two-factor authentication, enabling us to mitigate rogue access requests to our network and giving our workers the ability to work hybridly and tackle day-to-day jobs securely without having to come into the office."
"It provides single-pane-of-glass management, which is pretty easy and straightforward. Because we manage multiple access tiers, it allows us to essentially manage everything from one viewpoint and not have many viewpoints for the same product. This is important because it is a time and resource saver. It also saves us money."
"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."
"My impression of Cisco's identity intelligence capability to detect and respond to identity-based risks effectively is that it's a great product."
"Duo Security has helped remediate threats more quickly and offers security end to end."
"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."
"If you have to log in to something, you must go to Duo Security to confirm that you're who you are on your phone."
"My total rating for Cisco Duo is ten out of ten."
"From a technical point of view, products are stable and scalable, and we do appreciate the personal touch the sales engineers (SE) support and development bring, as well as the personal touch of the sales support, the free online, and web-based training."
"At the end of the day it's really good and really improved."
"This product allows us to actually send it straight from our email to the other person's email in a safe way, where we can meet all our regulations and still keep the data in our control."
"Safe-T SDA has allowed my organization to secure my office applications and makes it harder for hackers to be able to hack into my internal office web applications."
"It's easy to use over the web. A user who is not in the office can use it and securely insert files."
"We use only it for scanning files for viruses."
"Safe-T SDA has allowed my organization to secure my office applications and makes it harder for hackers to be able to hack into my internal office web applications."
"the security level is very high. After we tested it and checked all the security aspects of the product, we found that it's highly secure."
 

Cons

"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"iboss can be improved because the integration could be better; you need to import all the sites that you access today, and there are a few problems whenever you import thousands of websites, making the integration process messy for the users."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Its management interface should also be improved. They should also improve its update period."
"It took me a while to figure it out. I went to every user and forced them to set it up. I might have done it the long way."
"The deployment experience was more difficult than we expected because we had some problems with the version of the OS that we have in our servers."
"I think that the dashboard needs to be improved."
"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."
"The customer service is okay. However, the response time could be faster."
"I do not think Cisco Duo is the best option on the market thus far."
"We found it difficult to integrate it into our broader product family of Microsoft tools and other applications used across our organization."
"In terms of improvement, they need to be much more strict regarding the roadmap, about timelines and when new features will be up in production."
"When we have something that we want improved, it takes a little bit of time until it can be fixed."
"The Outlook agent is not working well for installing it in the entire office."
"One important thing that we haven't found in this product is the ability to provide a read-only view for documents. Also, the ability for the customer to add annotations to these documents."
"Better UI. A better UI for the people that manage all the processes of Safe-T. Some of the UI is not as intuitive as you would like it to be."
"The cloud solution is not that great especially with Swiss customers."
"The Outlook agent is not working well for installing it in the entire office."
"Setting up Safe-T SDE is very complex. It is not straightforward, and it requires much understanding on the concepts of the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"Duo Security is free."
"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."
"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."
"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."
"It falls in line with everything else."
"Cisco has the most expensive products because market leaders tend to charge a lot."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Performing Arts
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Media Company
9%
Religious Institution
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise58
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
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 Du...
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...
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 whe...
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Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Duo Security
Safe-T SDA, Safe-T, Safe-T Software-Defined Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Information Not Available
Government of Israel, eviCore Healthcore, Glen Imaging, Sarin, LBG, Rollomatic, Boegli-Gravures SA, Banque Heritage, Groupe Minoteries, Temenos, ZEK, RLM Finsbury, Harel Insurance, Meitav Dash
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Safe-T Secure Application Access and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.