Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Axiad Conductor vs RSA Adaptive Authentication comparison

Axiad and RSA are both solutions in the Authentication Systems category. Axiad is ranked #12 with an average rating of 10.0, while RSA is ranked #26. Axiad holds a 0.5% mindshare in AS, compared to RSA’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Axiad users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of RSA users who would recommend it.
Axiad Conductor
Read 6 Axiad Conductor reviews
  • 689 Views
  • 148 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
RSA Adaptive Authentication
Read 6 RSA Adaptive Authentication reviews
  • 254 Views
  • 203 Comparison Views
71% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report
Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 16, 2025

RSA Adaptive Authentication and Axiad Conductor are competing products in enterprise security management. RSA Adaptive Authentication has the upper hand in scalability and integration, while Axiad Conductor is favored for its user-friendly identity management.

Features: RSA Adaptive Authentication offers robust risk-based authentication, adaptive learning capacities, and extensive integration within existing systems. Axiad Conductor provides centralized identity management, strong multi-factor authentication, and innovative passwordless options.

Room for Improvement: RSA Adaptive Authentication could benefit from simplifying its deployment process, enhancing ease of use, and reducing the need for extensive configuration. Axiad Conductor could improve by offering more advanced analytics, expanding its customization options, and increasing its scalability for larger enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: RSA Adaptive Authentication involves a complex initial deployment with extensive IT resources required, benefiting from superior technical support. Axiad Conductor offers a more straightforward deployment with quick setup and simplified administration, complemented by responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: RSA Adaptive Authentication incurs higher setup costs due to extensive security features and customization, leading to higher ROI for larger deployments. Axiad Conductor presents competitive pricing with a lower initial investment, appealing to smaller enterprises for faster ROI through streamlined operations.

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT
To learn more, read our detailed Axiad Conductor vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication Report (Updated: April 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Axiad Conductor vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication
April 2025
Download the complete report
Helped 850,028 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

Axiad Conductor
Ranking in Authentication Systems
12th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (15th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (14th), Passwordless Authentication (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (5th)
RSA Adaptive Authentication
Ranking in Authentication Systems
26th
Average Rating
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Axiad Conductor is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Adaptive Authentication is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Brown - PeerSpot reviewer
The day-to-day tasks, running the servers, and making sure that everything is patched is all handled by the platform
The most valuable feature is the overhead management of the platform. There is less for my team to worry about. The day-to-day tasks, running the servers, and making sure that everything is patched is all handled by the platform. We just consume the service and work with them to refine it, making it even more valuable. Aside from Active Directory, anything that is a multi-factor platform is handled through Axiad Cloud. It is critical for helping to enforce usage of authentication devices across our organization. One of our requirements to continue some of our contracts is to have multi-factor authentication across all devices accessing the network. It is extremely easy to enroll a user with “One Click Issuance”. I have had very few calls to the service desk regarding enrollment. It takes a couple of minutes to enroll a user with "One Click Issuance". Deploying and managing authenticators is very easy, either done by a mobile application or enrollment of an OTP token. It is very simple. This is important to my userbase, which makes it important to me. Functionality-wise, it is pretty solid.
Read full review
AR
It stops fraud in banks and reduces their costs
RSA Adaptive Authentication is one of the most used tools for stopping fraud in the world. The tool is very good variable to take into account when deciding what product to choose. I think RSA is best options in this field since the tool is a really good piece of engineering.
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 life cycle management of credentials is the aspect that we have found to be the most useful... The differentiator that Axiad provided was the ability to provide users a way to self-serve the updating of their credentials on their private keys. That was the feature we were most interested in and Axiad does an excellent job of it."
"The solution has also saved us time by having end-users troubleshoot issues through the MyCircle feature, and has definitely reduced the efforts of our administrators. It is saving us five to 10 minutes per incident."
"Aside from Active Directory, anything that is a multi-factor platform is handled through Axiad Cloud. It is critical for helping to enforce usage of authentication devices across our organization."
"What I have found most valuable is the overall way Axiad listened to our problems and helped us solve them. They provided guidance and expertise, with their experience, that enabled us to be successful in a very challenging space."
"It's very user-friendly. We're issuing YubiKeys for our corporate users and they just plug it in, go to the Axiad Cloud portal, and click the issue button. It's a couple of steps."
"And when it comes to enrolling a user, it's super easy with One Click Issuance... It's so easy now that we can offload the process to our clients who can self-enroll. Previously, we would have to do the enrollment process because it was so complicated."
"Our customer are seeing value from the product, as they experience cost reductions. They can stop fraud from their customers, then their customers can have a better experience from their services."
"The capability to manage your business policy related to security when required without vendor involvement."
"Risk Engine’s risk score, eFN, GeoIP, and device binding all coming together in the Policy Rules to decide when to escalate to MFA."
"The most valuable feature is the stock tokens. That works the best for us."
"Ingestion of logs and raising alert space on those logs are the most valuable features."
 

Cons

"With their licensing model, it becomes hard to scale. For example, we couldn't roll it out enterprise-wide because if you scale it across more than 100,000 users, the cost becomes too exorbitant."
"I would like a more modern look to the portal."
"I'm looking forward to seeing how they move to FIDO U2F as their primary authentication method across all of their solutions."
"macOS is notoriously ever-evolving and it's difficult to keep pace with it as it pertains to certain kinds of crypto authentication. That's really not even on Axiad. That's a decision by Apple, but it makes it a moving target."
"We would prefer that the solution be hosted in Canada because we're a Canadian entity. That would be nice to have. It's not a feature, as such, but it would really make us a lot happier if it could be located in Canada."
"There are just some minor tweaks that could be made on the front end. It would be cool to have nicknames for authenticator devices. If you have more than one, it's hard to discern what you have."
"RSA Adaptive Authentication lacks a mechanism to verify the identity of a new user in the Enrollment event workflow."
"It has taken years to implement."
"Reporting modules is one of the major areas that can be improved further."
"I would like to see a more adaptive type of solution, something that we could use on our web pages..."
"The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated."
"Better filters when searching for events. The current features for current filters when searching fraud events are not very comprehensive. You can only filter by certain fields in the transaction."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Don't just focus on the hardware or software costs of acquiring a solution, but look at it from the perspective that so much of what it takes to run a PKI environment has to do with the people who are running it.... look at the total cost of ownership and not just the cost of acquisition."
"Axiad's pricing was what we were expecting. It was at the right spot. They were competitive."
"It's very cheap on a per-year basis. The cards themselves last about three years and the license is on the order of double-digit dollars per user, and not hundreds of dollars per user, per year."
"The pricing is very competitive for what is offered at the level that we need. They are right there with what the industry standards are. They tend to be a little bit less, in terms of cost, when we are talking about security at government standards. So, I would say that they have a slight advantage on cost compared to the industry average. They are the lower cost solution and the best bargain out on the market today."
"The pricing is $50 per head, yearly."
"You may need to opt for second best if funding is low and the number of users is huge. However, the pricing is able to be negotiated if your user figures are huge."
"Customers need to deploy the solution in a very expensive infrastructure. RSA should should think about a less expensive infrastructure for customers because the solution costs around $100,000, and the infrastructure needed to support that solution may be even more expensive than that price."
"Keep the proxy service layer on premises. That consumes SaaS security services on the back-end."
report
See which vendors are best for you
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Authentication Systems solutions are best for your needs.
See recommendations
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
50%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Axiad Cloud?
The life cycle management of credentials is the aspect that we have found to be the most useful... The differentiator that Axiad provided was the ability to provide users a way to self-serve the up...
See all answers
What is your primary use case for Axiad Cloud?
Our use case is credential management for one of the business units. Axiad provides credential management for those users, including the creation of new credentials and life cycle management of the...
See all answers
What advice do you have for others considering Axiad Cloud?
You have to understand the number of users and the number of devices that are going to use the solution. I'm saying that because of my experience with the licensing part. That's my one gripe. If yo...
See all answers
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

Venafi vs Axiad Conductor Logo
Venafi vs Axiad Conductor
Compared 42% of the time
Cisco Duo vs Axiad Conductor Logo
Cisco Duo vs Axiad Conductor
Compared 30% of the time
Yubico YubiKey vs Axiad Conductor Logo
Yubico YubiKey vs Axiad Conductor
Compared 28% of the time
More Axiad Conductor Competitors
RSA Authentication Manager vs RSA Adaptive Authentication Logo
RSA Authentication Manager vs RSA Adaptive Authentication
Compared 54% of the time
ThreatMetrix vs RSA Adaptive Authentication Logo
ThreatMetrix vs RSA Adaptive Authentication
Compared 46% of the time
More RSA Adaptive Authentication Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Axiad Conductor
April 2025
Axiad Conductor reportDownload Axiad Conductor product report
Buyer's Guide
Authentication Systems
April 2025
RSA Adaptive Authentication reportDownload RSA Adaptive Authentication product report
 

Also Known As

Axiad Cloud
No data available
 

Overview

Axiad Conductor offers a user-friendly platform for managing multifactor authentication and credential lifecycle, supporting seamless transitions to cloud environments for enhanced security compliance and access control.

Axiad Conductor stands out with intuitive management of multifactor authentication systems, assertive device lifecycle management, and a managed cloud solution that streamlines operations. It promotes user self-service for credential updates, minimizing the need for extensive training. With the capability to handle large networks, it enhances efficiency while meeting contract demands. Addressing user suggestions, plans include interface design updates and Canadian hosting, although macOS's frequent updates pose integration challenges.

What are the principal features of Axiad Conductor?
  • "One Click Issuance": Simplifies user enrollment through easy interface actions.
  • Multifactor Authentication: Manages critical authentication processes securely.
  • PKI Support: Facilitates seamless management in PKI environments.
  • Credential Self-Service: Empowers users to handle updates independently.
  • Cloud Management: Reduces operational burdens due to its managed environment.
What should users look for in terms of ROI and benefits?
  • Efficiency: Streamlined operations boost productivity across large networks.
  • Flexibility: Adaptability to meet evolving challenges and contract requirements.
  • User Empowerment: Enables users to manage their credentials autonomously.
  • Compliance: Supports regulation adherence effortlessly.

In diverse industries, Axiad Conductor is implemented to manage multifactor authentication and PKI elements like smart cards and YubiKeys. Organizations leverage it to ensure compliance, facilitate secure workforce access, and transition PKI systems to the cloud, handling substantial volumes of smart card and machine certificates with ease.

Axiad
RSA Adaptive Authentication is a risk-based two-factor authentication solution providing cost-effective protection for an entire user base. Adaptive Authentication secures online portals, SSL VPNs, and web access management portals for different types of organizations in the healthcare, insurance, enterprise, government, financial services, and other industries. Based on the transparent two-factor authentication technology, Adaptive Authentication works behind the scenes to authenticate end users and transactions based on individual end user and device profiles. In addition, Adaptive Authentication uses the RSA Risk Engine to estimate the level of risk for the specific activity and uses information collected from the RSAeFraudNetwork (a cross-organization, cross-application, cross-border online fraud network) to identify fraudulent activities. The Policy Manager determines what actions must be performed, depending on the risk score and other parameters.
RSA
 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ADP, Ameritas, Partners Healthcare
Buyer's Guide
Axiad Conductor vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication
April 2025
Free Report: Axiad Conductor vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication
Find out what your peers are saying about Axiad Conductor vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
DOWNLOAD NOW
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
See our Axiad Conductor vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication report.
See our list of best Authentication Systems vendors.

We monitor all Authentication Systems reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.