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Cisco Duo vs Defender by One Identity comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 20, 2026

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 Authentication Systems
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (5th), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (3rd)
Defender by One Identity
Ranking in Authentication Systems
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.7%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Defender by One Identity is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.7%
Defender by One Identity1.6%
Other94.7%
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Mahesh Malve - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Business Development Associate at DigitalTrack Solutions ind pvt ltd
Advanced analytics have strengthened privileged access security and reduced incident response time
While One Identity Defender is a strong solution overall, there are a few areas where I feel it could be improved. One area is the user interface and dashboard customization. Although it is functional, making it more modern and allowing deeper customization would improve the user experience, especially for quick monitoring. Another improvement could be in reporting flexibility. While it provides good reports, having more custom report building options and easier export features would be helpful for different compliance and manageability needs. From an integration perspective, while One Identity Defender works well with core systems, having more out-of-the-box integrations with modern cloud services and SaaS platforms would reduce the need for custom configuration. In terms of support, the overall support is good, but faster response times for critical issues and more detailed troubleshooting documentation would help teams resolve problems more efficiently.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the ability for users to connect securely to the office using the VPN."
"The solution is easy to use."
"I would say Cisco Duo improved our authentication with that extra layer of security and the usability for our end users."
"By deploying Duo, we have virtually eliminated the risk of direct deposit redirection as a result of credentials that have been compromised via phishing."
"Cisco is the perfect product for our current size, and I don't think we'll have problems with scalability as we grow."
"Duo Security has helped remediate threats more quickly and offers security end to end."
"The deployment and installation process for Cisco Duo is quite straightforward, which is an advantage."
"Cisco Duo has improved my operational efficiency and reduced costs in areas such as authentication, IT support, and security operations because many times it ends up coming down to the ease of use, especially for the third-party contractors we have."
"One Identity Defender has good network protection."
"It's very fast, and it's easy to use because it's integrated with Active Directory."
"We have definitely seen a positive ROI from using One Identity Defender, as our security team now spends about twenty to thirty percent less time on manual log analytics and investigations because the system automatically highlights high-risk activities, and we did not need to increase team size despite growing infrastructure as the tool helps us handle more security events with the same team."
"If you decide to activate this solution, your infrastructure will be centered around flexibility."
"One Identity Defender has positively impacted our organization by improving overall security through the addition of MFA, which reduces the risk of unauthorized access and makes user authentication more controlled and reliable."
"We find that the product scales very well."
 

Cons

"I think Cisco Duo could be improved by including email authentication, as there is currently only SMS, SMS push, and code generation, but having email authentication could be beneficial when you don't have a phone."
"One issue I see is when the device is offline."
"To improve Cisco Duo, wherever the team can try to reduce the number of clicks an end user needs to go through to authenticate would be good."
"I would appreciate seeing Cisco Duo improved with a tighter integration with Active Directory to secure not just Remote Desktop to a server, but all the remote levels of connection that you can make to a server."
"At the moment, I believe that more integration between Cisco Duo Identity Intelligence and the classic Cisco Duo console can be improved, since it is still a separate platform, and when I click on Identity Intelligence, I have to open a new window and log in again."
"I think Cisco Duo can be improved. I found the onboarding was very difficult, even for engineers who have been using similar solutions before."
"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."
"Cisco can further enhance the integrations, as they possess exceptional integrations with various providers' products and feature sets."
"One Identity Defender is a strong product, but there are a few areas where it can be improved."
"We have some clients that are wanting to protect their Apache web servers with One Identity Defender but all the research I have done says cannot be done. It can only be oriented to an IIS server. One Identity Defender should have more integration with more types of web servers."
"The login capabilities could be better."
"Maybe it could provide support for more web applications. It seems more focused on IIS web applications."
"The only reason it is not a ten is because response time can sometimes be slower for complex or escalated cases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."
"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."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Duo has been great. We've been there for 10 years. While we haven't gone through the setup part for a while, licensing is straightforward and convenient for higher education because student populations are included. So, we don't have to pay extra for it. We just pay for our knowledge workers, which has been great, and the cost is reasonable."
"The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
23%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise79
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise1
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cisco Duo indicates that the main setup cost for us has been the time and effort required to integrate Duo with existing applications, auth...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
Cisco Duo is generally easy to use, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. The initial setup and configuration can require some technical knowledge, especially when integrating Duo w...
What needs improvement with One Identity Defender?
One Identity Defender is a strong product, but there are a few areas where it can be improved. First, the user interface and reporting dashboards could be made more intuitive and customizable for f...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Defender?
One Identity Defender strengthens identity and access security through MFA, helping us ensure that only authorized users can access critical systems, especially for privileged accounts, with a focu...
What advice do you have for others considering One Identity Defender?
My advice for others looking into using One Identity Defender would be first to clearly define your use case, especially whether you need MFA mainly for privileged access, remote users, or both, as...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Bakersfield Police Department, Village of Westmont, Illinois
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Defender by One Identity and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,743 professionals have used our research since 2012.