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Cisco Duo vs CyberArk Secrets Management 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Access Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), Authentication Systems (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (2nd)
CyberArk Secrets Management
Ranking in Access Management
20th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (17th)
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Botts - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing security policies effectively with seamless authentication
The feature of Cisco Duo that I prefer the most is the policies, being able to control what we need to within the policies. You can get pretty granular. There isn't a lot of training that goes on in school districts. Email is an easy way where many people give out their credentials, so the level of protection is something that we definitely need in a school district. Cisco Duo's strong security authentication system has been easy when logging in, although the teachers don't appreciate it as much. We have it configured so users essentially just hit accept. If it sees any sort of built-in risk, then it steps up authentication. It's pretty easy. I appreciate it. I've encountered advantages with Cisco Duo in that it has stopped significant pushback from teachers. It has prevented credential sharing and unauthorized access. We've seen a huge decrease since we've rolled it out across the entire district.
RJ
Helps with compliance and improves operational flexibility
We have had both on-premises and SaaS models. The on-premise setup was a little difficult, but now that it has been moved to the SaaS model, everything is controlled by CyberArk. We just go and do our work. The initial on-premises setup took two weeks because it was an integrated effort. I had to spin up the servers and bring in the CyberArk Secrets Management resource to deploy the scripts. I then had to open networks and firewalls between CyberArk Secrets Management's on-premise servers and the application server. In the initial phase, it took two to three weeks, but it became easier when moving to the SaaS model. In terms of maintenance, it requires patching or upgrades, which happens one day in a month. If there is a failure, we have to roll back and try once again, which takes more time, but if everything goes smoothly, there is three to five hours of downtime.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is really scalable. It is easy once you get an application in. You can import users from Active Directory and enroll users really fast."
"Regarding the valuable features, I would say that Duo Security is easy to use, has speed, and is dependable."
"The most valuable aspect is the authentication and the SSO."
"The most appealing feature of Cisco Duo is the phone notification system that simply pops up on your phone."
"It's simple. It's reliable. I haven't had any issues with it."
"Cisco Duo is rock solid in terms of stability and reliability."
"My impression of Cisco's identity intelligence capability to detect and respond to identity-based risks effectively is that it's a great product."
"It's pretty easy for users to figure it out."
"The audit trails have been extremely important for us in helping our organization meet regulatory requirements."
"CyberArk's support team is knowledgeable and helpful, consistently responding on time."
"The automatic rotation of the password is the top feature."
"With CyberArk Secrets Management, we were able to resolve the automatic change of the passwords based on timelines. We were also able to retrieve the passwords in an encrypted format by utilizing the CyberArk platform, which was not provided to us by UiPath."
"CyberArk Secrets Management is a critical solution for strengthening our security posture."
"It's vital for effectively managing and securing my credentials."
"One of the most important features for us is the system's performance, particularly its speed of retrieving secrets."
"The granular controls of CyberArk Secrets Management are very niche in their development and very secure from the overall secret management perspective, offering high-level functionalities where we have control over user access, which can be tracked and monitored."
 

Cons

"The only thing I can think of to improve for tech support is to have a dedicated engineer but then I would get an engineer that has priorities in one area or another and maybe not the scope I need."
"The product could be more intuitive on the app."
"We have had instances where Duo Security stops working on a user's device, which we have fixed by uninstalling and then reinstalling it."
"It already integrates with lots of products, but it can integrate with more products. There should be easy integration with Cisco products because sometimes, it can be quite complicated."
"Cisco Duo could be improved if there were a way to make two-factor authentication quicker."
"General announcements when new features come out with Cisco Duo should be broadcasted to customers who are using it, which might bring more accessibility to their documents so users can be more in tune with updates."
"We have users who move throughout the world, and their levels of connectivity change. It can be a challenge, if someone is in Bahrain, to authenticate via Duo."
"There is a little bit of apprehension for some users thinking, well, "How do I know this app is not collecting personal information from my personal device?""
"Implementing it and ensuring seamless password rotations present challenges."
"There is room for improvement with better documentation and less need for CyberArk Secrets Management personnel to assist us with their presence."
"The password search feature and integration between different vaults could be enhanced. For instance, when updating passwords in both lower and higher environment vaults, improvement is required in search and upgrade functions."
"Improvements for CyberArk Secrets Management include enhanced documentation with more use cases and step-by-step integration guides."
"We occasionally experience incidents that delay password injection back into the script."
"Implementation was complex and required professional services."
"We did not have a good experience with technical support because their numerous processes caused delays in engaging, leading to project delays or issues with production."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It falls in line with everything else."
"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
"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."
"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."
"It has a fair pricing model. I know they have different tiers, but it would be nice to have different types of licenses for certain groups of users in our organization. That way, we wouldn't have to lump everybody into one group. That would be also one complaint."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."
"It is in the middle. It is neither very cheap nor very expensive, so I would place it in the middle."
"CyberArk Secrets Management has a moderate pricing structure based on a per-tenant licensing model rather than a per-user account model like their PAM solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Insurance Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Legal Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise36
No data available
 

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...
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 the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Duo is honestly above my pay grade. I don't know any of that.
What needs improvement with CyberArk Secrets Management?
The tool is very good, but the commercialized training, which is paid, could be improved. Regularizing those trainings as part of a global alliance between the customer, SI partner, and CyberArk wo...
What is your primary use case for CyberArk Secrets Management?
The main use case for CyberArk Secrets Management is application integrations and the CI and CD part. In CyberArk Secrets Management, there are a variety of tools that they cover, one being the Cre...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. CyberArk Secrets Management and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.