Cisco Duo vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category. Cisco is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.8, while Broadcom is ranked #13 with an average rating of 6.8. Cisco holds a 3.4% mindshare in SSO, compared to Broadcom’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Cisco Duo

Read 89 Cisco Duo reviews

7,041 Views
2,183 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Symantec Siteminder

Read 75 Symantec Siteminder reviews

2,360 Views
1,510 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Cisco Duo

Symantec Siteminder

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Symantec Siteminder and Cisco Duo are two leading solutions in the authentication and access management space. Cisco Duo seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive features and overall value.

Features: Symantec Siteminder is valued for robust policy management, strong enterprise-level capabilities, and comprehensive security controls. Cisco Duo stands out for its user-friendly design, seamless integration, and adaptive authentication strengths.

Room for Improvement: Symantec Siteminder users highlight the need for a more intuitive design, better integration with cloud services, and enhanced user interface. Cisco Duo users request enhancements in detailed reporting, more flexible deployment options, and improved offline capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Symantec Siteminder’s deployment is noted for being complex, requiring significant time and resources. Customer service is responsive but sometimes slow. Cisco Duo is praised for its straightforward deployment process and efficient customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Symantec Siteminder's setup costs are perceived as high, with users reporting a substantial investment and gradual ROI. Cisco Duo is considered competitively priced, offering quicker ROI with lower initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Duo vs. Symantec Siteminder Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo vs. Symantec Siteminder

January 2026

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Helped 881,733 peers since 2012

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 Single Sign-On (SSO)

3rd

Ranking in Access Management

4th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Authentication Systems (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)

Symantec Siteminder

Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)

13th

Ranking in Access Management

12th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Access Management (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.4%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.6%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Single Sign-On (SSO) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco Duo	3.4%
Symantec Siteminder	2.6%
Other	94.0%

Single Sign-On (SSO)

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.

Read full review

Muzi Lubisi

Senior technical Consultant at CA Africa

Improved user experience with seamless integration and easy installation

The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows. Additionally, it is very beneficial for deploying single sign-on sessions between different windows on a web browser, provided I am connected to the right identity provider. That seamless integration significantly improves user experience and efficiency.

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

"The feature I like the most about Cisco Duo is that it allows us to authenticate users before they can connect to our network from outside of our company."

"The multi-factor authentication process and the geo-locking features are great."

"The feature that my organization started using more recently in Cisco Duo is offline authentication."

"Cisco Duo helps minimize the risk of attack vectors and prevents unauthorized access to our data since it's tied with multi-factor authentication, which helps block threats."

"Duo has allowed us to add an additional layer of security to our organization and to establish trust for every access request and secures our environment."

"The push notifications and the integrations they offer are valuable. Their mobile app is very useful. It is very easy to use."

"The solution is pretty secure."

"Cisco is the perfect product for our current size, and I don't think we'll have problems with scalability as we grow."

More Cisco Duo pros

"Federation is valuable, for sure, because we have a lot of third-party vendors that we need to integrate with, and this is a turnkey solution in some ways."

"You can quickly deploy the entire product with a basic config within couple of hours."

"The single sign-on is the solution's most valuable feature"

"The most valuable feature is that it meets the requirements of the customer. You have a lot of features in the product. Every product has them, but the question is, are these products going to meet the requirement of the customer?"

"The most valuable feature is the integration with the Active Directory."

"I liked the debugging part. There are only two files (trace file and log file) that you need to look into while performing debugging, and the logs give you the exact info on where and what needs to be fixed."

"A valuable feature of Siteminder is the way it handles bulk traffic. The features it has, in terms of routing the traffic and load balancing, are good."

"The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows."

More Symantec Siteminder pros

Cons

"For upgrades, there should be a better notification of when they're coming out. We always have a testing phase, so we need to be ahead of it. It takes us longer before we can upgrade to the newest version."

"Duo Security could improve by being more compatible with other vendors."

"Integration with a product such as Microsoft Sentinel would be great. As the product continually improves, I'm unsure if this feature is available."

"To improve Cisco Duo, the biggest consideration is the licensing standpoint; the most common issue I've found is customers not setting up the Active Directory sync properly, leading to inflated licensing usage when they try to delete inactive users that are still being charged."

"We already have Active Directory enabled in our routers and switches. However, if we could do two-factor authentication, then it could go a long way since no one's getting into them unless you want them to."

"The dashboard needs to be improved."

"The pain point for us at one point was the Duo Authentication Proxy since we're on-premises and not in the cloud. We had to have a proxy machine that's in our DMZ to talk to Duo for us. The configuration of that was a little complicated."

"Cisco Duo is stable, but occasionally there are emails about incidents that affect some services temporarily."

More Cisco Duo cons

"The Federation part of CA Single Sign On, it's a bit complex to implement because it involves the SSL certificates, exchange of certificates, and lot of technical details. The documentation misses some important parts of this, so that's the reason it took some time for us to go live."

"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."

"We are finding some compatibility issues. We're still working with CA on them."

"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."

"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."

"If the reporting feature can be integrated into SSO itself that will be an icing on the cake."

"I would like to see a move towards the newer technologies, which is what we are doing right now. I think that's in the roadmap that's coming, in the 12.8 and 14 releases, but we would like to have it sooner than later."

"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."

More Symantec Siteminder cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

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

"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."

"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."

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

"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."

More Cisco Duo pricing and cost advice

"The licensing is fair for this solution."

"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."

"Siteminder is a little costly. You pay for licensing, and they offer packages, so if you have less users, then you have to buy different products at different prices. If you have more of a user base, then the package is different. They also include other features—for example, if you have a database and you're using Siteminder, then it's good to use a Semantic-specific database, but if you are using less, then you have to purchase the database separately. Whereas if you are going for a bigger license, then it comes within the package. It depends on which plan you are using."

"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."

"The solution's pricing is competitive."

"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

25%

Insurance Company

Marketing Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	40

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	69

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...

See all answers

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

The pricing of Cisco Duo is quite reasonable compared to other products.

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Symantec Siteminder?

It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Siteminder?

My experience with pricing is that it is all good.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Symantec Siteminder?

Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features. Currently, multi-factor authentication is available as a separate solution, and it ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Duo

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Cisco Duo

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiToken vs Cisco Duo

Compared 6% of the time

Yubico YubiKey vs Cisco Duo

Compared 4% of the time

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco Duo

Compared 4% of the time

More Cisco Duo Competitors

Ping Identity Platform vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 18% of the time

Okta Platform vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 11% of the time

Keeper Enterprise Password Manager vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 8% of the time

Auth0 Platform vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 7% of the time

More Symantec Siteminder Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo

February 2026

Download Cisco Duo product report

Buyer's Guide

Symantec Siteminder

January 2026

Download Symantec Siteminder product report

Also Known As

Duo Security

SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder

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

Symantec® SiteMinder is designed to secure the modern enterprise through a unified access management platform that applies the appropriate authentication mechanism to positively identify users; provides single sign-on and identity federation for seamless access to any application; enforces granular security policies to stop unauthorized access to sensitive resources; and monitors and manages the entire user session to prevent session hijacking. Finally, Symantec SiteMinder is battle-tested and has been deployed in the largest IT environments in the world.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo vs. Symantec Siteminder

January 2026

Free Report: Cisco Duo vs. Symantec Siteminder

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

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