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I am an IT system support person, and my use cases with Cisco Duo started out with helping clients at my firm and the firms my contracting agencies had by teaching them how to set up Cisco Duo and understand how to use it. Eventually, some of the systems I have access to on my own, usually the corporate systems and employee portals, were Cisco Duo-protected. It has been a split between using Cisco Duo and Microsoft Authenticator, depending on how the MFA has been set up. I started out as IT support, helping people install Cisco Duo on their Android and Apple devices, and I believe they actually had a computer client. Eventually, I had to use it in my own work to authenticate and gain access to the systems I support. Moreover, I have seen a lot of it used to access employee portals, either by end-user employees or my own employee portals.

My last access to Cisco Duo involved helping people either activate their Cisco Duo accounts on their individual Apple or Android devices, or if they were locked out, unlock their accounts or move them over to a new device.

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.

As support, I do not find it an issue with Cisco Duo product itself; it is more an issue of organization administration. 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. It is primarily an issue on the administrative side of the firm I am working for.

I am familiar with Cisco Duo and have probably been using it since around 2020.

Cisco Duo seems very scalable. In my experience, I started with a small-medium business, and in my last contracting position, it was a large one for a major worldwide airline that had hundreds of thousands of devices that could use Cisco Duo, and it scaled very well. The administrative site was also very easy to navigate for locating people and devices. I also have a background in computer asset management, so I have the skill set to locate device records easily.

In terms of quality and speed of support for Cisco Duo, I find it just as fine as any other Cisco product. It is simpler at the endpoint; there is much less involved in calling technical support to resolve issues compared to other Cisco products. I have also dealt with firewalls and VPNs, and I can say that Cisco Duo administration is much less involved than other Cisco areas. I would rate support for Cisco Duo a 10, as I have never had a negative experience.

Positive

My experience with MFA is primarily Cisco Duo and Microsoft Authenticator, and I have used them both similarly, either as pushes for allow or deny or as stronger MFA requirements such as exchanging passcodes. From my experience, Cisco Duo seems a lot easier to install and operate. In helping add accounts to either my devices or to the devices of the people I am supporting, both systems work well. I can get passcodes or utilize QR codes. One thing I noticed about my current firm is their initial hesitation to consider QR code exchange secure, but eventually, it was re-enabled to reduce support times. As an administrator, I have done both, pushing activation to pre-installed devices already registered to a system or actually sending people a QR code to their email, and both methods worked fine with personal and corporate email.

The setup of Cisco Duo is easy. Most of the time, the setup took me walking the end user through the installation over the phone, but if they understood how to get to their App Store or Play Store, it takes probably under two minutes. Most of it depends on wide area network or internet speed; activating directly on a client device versus sending an activation email makes a difference. If it is all set up and requires only sending an activation code message, it is about a minute. Cisco Duo installs very quickly on Android and Apple devices, provided the Wi-Fi connection is good.

From what I was involved in with Cisco Duo, we actually conducted Cisco Duo pushes through the management systems, enabling that through MDMs, the Bomgar. I found it pretty easy to grab the latest version of the Cisco Duo installer to update the packages on our management systems. I do not remember having any problems; it is one of the easier applets to package or to already find packaged.

I am currently between jobs or contracts, but I believe for the MFA administrator, it would help if they set up the filters for gathering the data. Cisco Duo seems very scalable. In my experience, I started with a small-medium business, and in my last contracting position, it was a large one for a major worldwide airline that had hundreds of thousands of devices that could use Cisco Duo, and it scaled very well. The administrative site was also very easy to navigate for locating people and devices. I also have a background in computer asset management, so I have the skill set to locate device records easily. I have given this review an overall rating of 10.

My main use case for Okta Platform is single sign-on for other applications, and sometimes I also use it for devices with MDMs, and also for workflow, especially for onboarding and offboarding different users.

I use Okta Platform for single sign-on across multiple applications where I integrate multiple applications for single sign-on, and I also integrate an HRM solution for onboarding and offboarding purposes.

Single sign-on is one of the best features Okta Platform offers. Workflows are also good, and device trust is another top feature.

Okta Platform has positively impacted my organization by improving our processes significantly. It eliminates the need for different passwords for various applications compared to single sign-on, which reduces the headache of IT work when offboarding and onboarding users across multiple groups and applications. It is always helpful, and it reduces a lot of work for us.

Implementing Okta has reduced a lot of IT work. I would say it saves hours and hours of work when it comes to single sign-on and the same for user onboarding, offboarding, and group settings.

I would say Okta Platform needs to improve on pricing because now Entra ID is providing this kind of capability built-in with P1. People are moving towards those solutions because it is more integrated, provides single sign-on as well, and can do device trust and certificates. If Okta Platform needs to stay in the market, they should consider bringing down their pricing to maintain or regain business, as there is no comparison now with Entra ID.

I think pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Okta Platform are on the higher side. They need to reduce the pricing if they wish to survive and remain competitive.

I have been using Okta Platform for more than six years now.

Okta Platform is stable, scalable, and reliable.

The customer support for Okta Platform is good.

I did not previously use a different solution before Okta Platform.

I have seen a return on investment with Okta Platform. Implementing this solution saves time and money. By saving engineering time, I am effectively saving money as well, so it saves a lot of hours of manual work.

I did evaluate other options before choosing Okta Platform.

I think the rest of Okta Platform is good. I would say it is more good than Entra, so it is good overall.

I think Okta Platform uses AI for governance and is still working on it. They will reach out in due course. However, as far as single sign-on and such functionalities go, AI is not needed there. If your workflow is good, then everything should be fine.

I find its accuracy and reliability of output to be around eighty to ninety percent.

Okta Platform helps secure access to cloud infrastructure, APIs, containerized workloads, and AI GenAI services in my architecture through API-based and token-based integration with single sign-on for these applications. It is always helpful.

Okta Platform does not protect non-human identities in my environment, such as service accounts or machine-to-machine access, because I use RDP. It provides capabilities there, but not for service accounts or similar.

Okta Platform helps address specific industry or regulatory requirements in healthcare, financial services, or the public sector, and I would say everything is nominal.

I have noticed measurable security and operational improvements in my cloud-based workloads since implementing Okta Platform. It provides secure single sign-on and everything.

Okta Platform is a good platform and has everything needed with more capabilities. The only concern is pricing, so I recommend comparing it with other platforms because you might already have this capability in Entra. I would rate this product nine out of ten.