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Cisco Duo vs One Identity Defender comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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
7.9
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (2nd)
One Identity Defender
Ranking in Authentication Systems
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 9.6%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of One Identity Defender is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Chandan Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Starts quickly with quick deployment but needs more support for older applications
Cisco Duo ( /products/cisco-duo-reviews ) is quick to deploy and easy to start. A valuable feature of the solution is its hybrid structure, which involves proxy agents running on-premises while other services are on the cloud. This setup makes it scalable, as the deployment section is in the cloud, allowing the installation of agents according to needs.
Maksym Tkachenko - PeerSpot reviewer
Good compatibility, responsive support, and a nice interface
The solution works very well. The initial setup is pretty easy. It is stable and pretty reliable in general. We find that the product scales very well.  Technical support is responsive. The interface is good.  It is compatible with other products.  It has everything we need right now. The login…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco is the perfect product for our current size, and I don't think we'll have problems with scalability as we grow."
"For me and my customers, the best feature is that it's very easy to integrate with the existing infrastructure. It takes a few minutes to configure it."
"Multifactor authentication is the most valuable feature."
"Compared to Cisco, the general support I experience is fantastic; I have no complaints about it."
"Cisco Duo is quick to deploy and easy to start."
"The most valuable features of Duo Security are visibility and OTP authentication. The OTP is very important because it is a self-enrollment feature, you are able to enroll users very quickly with a shorter time period."
"Regarding the valuable features, I would say that Duo Security is easy to use, has speed, and is dependable."
"What I most appreciate about Cisco Duo is the ease of use."
"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 find that the product scales very well."
 

Cons

"It is easy to use when logging in, but at times, there's a delay in getting the pop-up on a phone, requiring users to occasionally retry authentication depending on backend services."
"Improving Cisco Duo might involve alerting us about telephony credits when people receive texts. We hit zero at one point, and we were running around in circles without any idea until I discovered it. That's my only complaint."
"Duo Security should have more customized use cases. For example, if a client needs to have more customization, it would be better to connect directly with Duo's R&D to try to discuss the issues together in order to add customizations."
"I'd like to see it integrated into other applications. I know there are some integrations, but I haven't been able to explore that any further."
"The price of Cisco Duo could be better."
"I have not seen ROI with Cisco Duo; probably the opposite, because it impedes productivity time to be able to get into the system. You have to authenticate and do your regular login and your Active Directory logins."
"The dashboard needs to be improved."
"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."
"The login capabilities could be better."
"Maybe it could provide support for more web applications. It seems more focused on IIS web applications."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a reseller perspective, it's still challenging to explain the whole license strategy to a client, so we really have to be ahead of that for all the true forward conversations."
"My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been good, with no issues. I am pleased that the prices remained stable after Cisco acquired the solution."
"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 am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
"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."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"It's a bit confusing because we're on a three-year plan with a certain number of licenses, and we've gone over that number. They told us that when we renew, they will add all these licenses. We've expanded quickly, so everyone's kind of scared because no one knows what the bill is with the long pricing cycle."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
Non Profit
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Retailer
12%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 do you like most about One Identity Defender?
It's very fast, and it's easy to use because it's integrated with Active Directory.
What needs improvement with One Identity Defender?
Maybe it could provide support for more web applications. It would be useful to focus on other web applications. For example, if an application needs to be installed on an iOS server and it's not, ...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Defender?
Our primary use cases include functions such as role-based access control, user registration, and integration with other systems. We use it to improve the security of our web applications. Addition...
 

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. One Identity Defender and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.