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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) (4th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), 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 August 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 9.2%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of One Identity Defender is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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

"We get fewer threats to remediate due to the two-factor authentication, which does not allow as many threats through."
"Cisco Duo helps minimize the risk of attack vectors and prevents unauthorized access to our data since it's tied with multi-factor authentication, which helps block threats."
"Cisco Duo has benefited our company overall by giving us the ability to have multi-factor authentication."
"I like the set time that users can log into devices during the day and how many times they can do so. I also like the ability to restrict the regions from which the user can get in. Users outside of our country or even the town cannot log in."
"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."
"As a former employee, I think it's top-notch when it comes to protecting internal and external threats and preventing unauthorized access to the network."
"The feature of Cisco Duo that I prefer the most is the policies, being able to control what we need to within the policies."
"Compared to Cisco, the general support I experience is fantastic; I have no complaints about it."
"It's very fast, and it's easy to use because it's integrated with Active Directory."
"One Identity Defender has good network protection."
"We find that the product scales very well."
 

Cons

"They can make authentication easier. It should be done in a shorter time. Sometimes, it can take a bit more time to get the answer on your phone. You have to wait a bit longer to get the SMS code and other things. There can be some internet or connection issues. They should make it faster because sometimes, it's urgent, and you need to access something as soon as possible."
"Technical support could be improved. I don't think all support should have to go through an agreement."
"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."
"We have a 24 hour timer for our Duo cookie and we would like to reduce this to a shorter time when using Duo."
"Cisco Duo can be improved with better ways to set users up. Currently, we might not be doing it perfectly as we're having them email in phone numbers to get them set up with Duo Mobile. I wish there was more of a self-service option than there is currently, at least to my understanding of Duo."
"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."
"The technical engineers in the first line of support should improve their knowledge."
"Sometimes, it's a little harder for customers to adopt."
"Maybe it could provide support for more web applications. It seems more focused on IIS web applications."
"The login capabilities could be better."
"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

"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."
"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."
"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."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"It was very reasonable."
"It falls in line with everything else."
"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."
"Cisco's licensing is always a bit complicated to understand, but the price is fair. It could be more expensive than others, but the way they integrate everything, it has a fair price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
 

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 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.
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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: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.