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AWS IAM Identity Center vs Cisco Duo comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
AWS IAM Identity Center boosts ROI by enhancing security, streamlining access, and reducing administrative overhead, improving operational efficiency.
Sentiment score
6.7
Cisco Duo enhances security, reduces breaches, boosts morale, and lowers costs, despite integration challenges for larger enterprises.
The return on investment includes operational efficiency gains, security risk reduction, compliance with regulations, improved user experience, productivity benefits, reduced overhead, and better security posture.
DevOps Engineer | Cloud Architect & Automation Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, AWS EKS at Phoenix Marketing & Advertising
We have achieved significant time efficiencies with AWS IAM Identity Center.
Director of Engineering at Infosys
I think Cisco Duo offers a good return on investment for startups, newer organizations, or those utilizing cloud-based applications.
Identity and Access Management Principal at Mobily
I have not seen ROI with Cisco Duo; probably the opposite, because it impedes productivity time to be able to get into the system.
Network Engineer at West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, Inc.
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Cisco Duo is the security and the ease of setting it up.
Chief Technology Officer at University of Redlands
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
AWS IAM Identity Center users find documentation lengthy but praise AWS's prompt and helpful support and appreciate diverse support options.
Sentiment score
7.1
Cisco Duo's customer service is praised for expertise and reliability, though some experience delays and difficulty contacting experts.
AWS provides immediate solutions and assistance whenever needed, especially if issues arise that cannot be handled internally.
Director of Engineering at Infosys
They are prompt, keep you updated, and provide excellent assistance.
AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions
AWS offers better assistance plans for their services.
Strategist | Webops and Blockchain at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
They got back to us quickly, were nice, and gave us what we needed.
Infrastructure Engineer at a government with 501-1,000 employees
I would rate their support 10 out of 10.
Senior Network Engineer Specialist at Zenith Comp Co.,Ltd.
I would rate support for Cisco Duo a 10, as I have never had a negative experience.
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
AWS IAM Identity Center excels in scalability and adaptability, but could improve in user group syncing and third-party integration.
Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Duo is a scalable, cloud-based solution integrating smoothly with systems, supporting growth without performance limits or licensing issues.
AWS Identity Center successfully supports scalable deployments, allowing additional resources as the company grows.
AWS Cloud Engineer at BINO-K
The scalability of AWS IAM Identity Center is excellent.
AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions
It can handle both a small number of users and a bigger number of users efficiently.
AWS Certification Full Stack Cloud Engineer at Social Economic Accelerator LabSocial
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.
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
I believe Cisco Duo is very scalable because it is cloud-based.
Identity and Access Management Principal at Mobily
We started out with just the basics, getting a token, and then we changed to push, and now, we have added the offline mode.
Network Engineer at West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, Inc.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
AWS IAM Identity Center boasts 99.96% uptime, stability, reliability, with minor regional login impacts swiftly addressed by AWS.
Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Duo is exceptionally stable and reliable, with seamless integration and quick issue resolution, maintaining high performance.
There can be issues if there is an outage on AWS's side, which could prevent logging in because your region might be down, affecting the Identity Center's availability.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
It offers 99.96% uptime.
AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions
Stability-wise, it is functioning well without any outages or crashes.
AWS Certification Full Stack Cloud Engineer at Social Economic Accelerator LabSocial
We have not had any Cisco Duo outages across all the companies I have worked for that utilize Cisco Duo.
Senior Engineer at a legal firm with 1-10 employees
When there is a bigger problem, we get notifications from Cisco Duo saying, 'Hey, we have a problem,' and that has helped us.
Network Engineer at West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, Inc.
We have never experienced any downtime.
Vice President at Next Info Tech Solutions Inc
 

Room For Improvement

AWS IAM Identity Center needs UI clarity, better integration, flexible access controls, enhanced tools, and improved support for users.
Cisco Duo needs better integration, simpler authentication, improved documentation, faster updates, easier deployment, and reduced telephony credit reliance.
Having a lot of users on one instance is hard to configure, so I hope for more flexibility and ease in configuration.
AWS Certification Full Stack Cloud Engineer at Social Economic Accelerator LabSocial
Enhancements could include automation tools or a centralized dashboard for managing roles and policies across multiple accounts, simplifying the process.
DevOps Engineer | Cloud Architect & Automation Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, AWS EKS at Phoenix Marketing & Advertising
When configuring it with third-party tools, like Active Directory, the naming convention of permission sets requires careful attention, which can be confusing.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
If you don't have internet access, you can't access your computer, only local access is available.
Security and Network Team Lead
Cisco should allow easier integration with third-party equipment because Cisco's own equipment is expensive.
Procurement Officer at Emerging Systems
There needs to be consideration for how to launch Cisco Duo with a handheld device that is not native, where you can install the application.
Director, Customer Success at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

AWS IAM Identity Center is cost-effective, mainly free, with extra charges for premium features and competitive with other providers.
Cisco Duo is viewed as affordable with flexible licensing, though some find its pricing structure confusing, especially in long-term contracts.
AWS IAM Identity Center is available as a free service by default.
AWS Cloud Engineer at BINO-K
It is not that expensive, rated at three out of ten for costs.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
Pricing for AWS IAM Identity Center is very affordable, rated at two out of ten with one being cheap.
AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions
The pricing is acceptable to them.
Vice President at Next Info Tech Solutions Inc
Their website lists $3 per month per user for the Essential license.
Senior Network Engineer Specialist at Zenith Comp Co.,Ltd.
One of my customers recently received a billing statement charging 3,600 US dollars for 100 users for one year.
Sr. Network Security Engineer at Topnet Internet Services Provider. Riyadh, Saudi A
 

Valuable Features

AWS IAM Identity Center centralizes permission management with templates, role-based access, MFA, and SSO for streamlined security.
Cisco Duo enhances security with diverse authentication, seamless integration, ease of use, and robust two-factor authentication for remote access.
It provides the least privilege-based access control, which limits users to only the operations they need to perform without interfering with unrelated configurations.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
These features allow for excellent micro-level control over resources, ensuring specific permissions are granted.
Strategist | Webops and Blockchain at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Its valuable features include granular access control, allowing precise control over who can access specific AWS resources and under what conditions using JSON-based policies.
DevOps Engineer | Cloud Architect & Automation Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, AWS EKS at Phoenix Marketing & Advertising
From a management perspective, I appreciate that we can enroll or control devices on the back end for people who get a new phone and forget to handle Cisco Duo properly and need to add a new device.
Network Engineer at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
Our company benefits from all those features of Cisco Duo with confidence, and we feel very secure with it in terms of authentication of our logins.
Vice President at Next Info Tech Solutions Inc
The benefit of having a complete passwordless environment in our organization is that it's gotten people away from using the sticky note under their keyboard - which is a huge problem.
Director, Technology at Deer Creek High School
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS IAM Identity Center
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (7th)
Cisco Duo
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (2nd), Access Management (4th), ZTNA as a Service (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of AWS IAM Identity Center is 2.4%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.5%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Duo3.5%
AWS IAM Identity Center2.4%
Other94.1%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

MA
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
Helped our organization by providing a unified dashboard to manage permissions and access controls
The most valuable feature of AWS IAM Identity Center is the ability to provide a structured approach to access management through a single dashboard. This single-pane management allows users to manage access control and permissions centrally. It provides the least privilege-based access control, which limits users to only the operations they need to perform without interfering with unrelated configurations.
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.
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879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise38
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS IAM Identity Center?
The product is easy for beginners to learn and use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS IAM Identity Center?
AWS provides the lowest pricing among other service providers like Azure, Google, Oracle. It is cost-effective, and they use a pay-as-you-go model.
What needs improvement with AWS IAM Identity Center?
The tech support for AWS is time-consuming, as we have experienced this issue. However, I am not aware of many other cases.
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?
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...
 

Also Known As

AWS Single Sign On, AWS SSO
Duo Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS IAM Identity Center vs. Cisco Duo and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.