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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
7.1
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
One Identity Defender
Ranking in Authentication Systems
29th
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 November 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 7.2%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of One Identity Defender is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Duo7.2%
One Identity Defender1.1%
Other91.7%
Authentication Systems
 

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.
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

"The multi-factor authentication process and the geo-locking features are great."
"Compared to Cisco, the general support I experience is fantastic; I have no complaints about it."
"Duo Security improved my organization by helping us secure all access points within the company infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature is the ability for users to connect securely to the office using the VPN."
"The feature I like the most about Cisco Duo is that it allows us to authenticate users before they can connect to our network from outside of our company."
"The UI of Cisco Duo is easy to use, especially the web backend, and it's really intuitive and easy to set up."
"If you have to log in to something, you must go to Duo Security to confirm that you're who you are on your phone."
"The two-factor login is great. I receive a message and just have to press okay."
"One Identity Defender has good network protection."
"We find that the product scales very well."
"It's very fast, and it's easy to use because it's integrated with Active Directory."
 

Cons

"Duo Security could be improved with the addition of more applications."
"Integration with a product such as Microsoft Sentinel would be great. As the product continually improves, I'm unsure if this feature is available."
"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."
"Cisco Duo can be improved by exploring a way to make it a more seamless integration and by deploying an in-house server."
"Regarding the stability and reliability of the Cisco Duo solution, we have experienced some outages over the last few years that are significant because people can't log in."
"One area that might be improved is that setting up SMS texting is not as easy as using the app, even though it does support it."
"I would like to see some features simplified, such as securing, configuring, and implementing Microsoft Remote Desktop. Other than that, the solution was rock solid throughout my time administering it."
"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."
"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."
"The login capabilities could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Duo Security's pricing is good, fair, and very comparable to today's market."
"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."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"The licensing is very good because it does not cost a lot of money. It's affordable for all-sized customers, including enterprises. There is an additional cost for premium support."
"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."
"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."
"I only need the solution for IT staff, which makes it relatively cheap. If I deployed it for the whole company, it would be costly, so it depends on the number of users. Duo Security is affordable compared to other products in the segment."
"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Non Profit
12%
Government
12%
Retailer
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
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 pricing, setup, costs, and licensing is that I do not get into pricing much; I leave it to procurement, but I think it's very competitive. We use other Cisco products such as fir...
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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: November 2025.
872,922 professionals have used our research since 2012.