Cisco Duo vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Aug 1, 2023

We compared Duo Security and Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:

  • Ease of Deployment: Users found Duo Security's initial setup to be simple and fast, thanks to the helpful documentation and user-friendly interface. In contrast, Prisma Access's setup was more diverse in terms of complexity and duration. Some users found it easy, while others needed expertise and assistance.
  • Features: Dup Security offers two-factor authentication, single-pane-of-glass management, integration capabilities, and reliable support. Prisma Access provides user accessibility, security features, integration capabilities, global presence, and millions of daily security updates.
  • Room for Improvement: Duo Security has room for improvement in terms of compatibility with other vendors, user-specific permissions, password-free login option, and technical support. On the other hand, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks could benefit from enhancements in user interface, automation, and geographic coverage.
  • Pricing: Duo Security has a flexible and affordable setup cost, although it may be expensive for small businesses. Prisma Access, on the other hand, is generally considered to be on the higher side in terms of cost, but its quality and features justify it. The licensing model for Prisma Access is described as complicated, while Duo Security is praised for its simplicity and ease.
  • ROI: Duo Security enhances security measures, defends against cyber threats, and lowers expenses, resulting in a favorable return on investment. Prisma Access provides cost advantages, identifies vulnerabilities, and instills confidence in senior personnel.
  • Service and Support: Duo Security's customer service is highly regarded for its quick problem-solving and remote assistance. However, without a service agreement, response times may be slower. On the other hand, Prisma Access has received varied feedback, with some users recommending enhancements in technical support.

Comparison Results: Duo Security is praised for its easy setup, user-friendly interface, and detailed documentation. It excels in providing two-factor authentication and integration capabilities. However, it needs improvement in terms of compatibility, user-specific permissions, and technical support. On the other hand, Prisma Access is highly valued for its accessibility, strong security features, and global performance. It offers protection for all app traffic and integrates well with other Palo Alto platforms. However, it can be challenging to configure and has mixed reviews regarding customer support. Duo Security is considered competitively priced, while Prisma Access is seen as more expensive but worth it for its quality. 

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Duo vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Report (Updated: September 2023).
745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"We were considering purchasing other products, like AMP for Endpoints, and it was not properly integrated with the firewall function. It might be better now with SecureX.""The most valuable feature is the ability for users to connect securely to the office using the VPN.""Duo Security provides a high level of certainty regarding the identity of the individual performing an action. Whether it's logging into a system, using VPN, or utilizing Autopay, establishing that trust is crucial. I can't imagine any security company, organization, or IT team that wouldn't prioritize having multifactor authentication enabled when accessing critical systems.""The app has greater stability than rival solutions such as Google Authenticator, and Duo Push authentication is a valuable feature.""The solution is easy to use.""It's easy to use for the security part, and it helps to improve our security posture.""Multifactor authentication is the most valuable feature.""Duo Security gives us an additional layer of security that would give us added confidence that our network will be less likely to get hacked, compromised, or otherwise."

More Cisco Duo Pros →

"It supports auto-scaling for mobile users. It auto-scales depending on the mobile user traffic. For example, if 1,000 people are working from home today, and tomorrow, the number increases to 2,000, it is not going to be an issue.""The Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) offered by Palo Alto is a good reporting tool. It gives insights into how things are going within the network. It takes all the data from the users' endpoints and does an analysis, and it suggests changes as well.""We have an application called ADEM that helps us troubleshoot network-related issues. It helps us to isolate an issue whether it is on the ISP level, endpoint level, or system access level.""I like it because it's very easy to use. You install the client and you have to know your gateway, but that's something we give to our users. Beyond that, it takes about three seconds to train them on how to use it. And it just works well. That's great for us because it means less administrative time.""You have the ability to create your own expressions for your data. Palo Alto understands that DLP is not the same for all consumers. You might have a particular need to fulfill, and they give you the opportunity to create a custom expression to match the specific format that you have. For a confidential file property that you have in your files, you can add a metadata field. It gives you that opportunity to create that.""The solution is not very complex and is easy to manage for people who may or may not have knowledge about Palo Alto Networks.""Being able to use the user ID or Active Directory Group is one of the great features for control and providing more flexibility without worrying about IP addresses.""Palo Alto Firewall is one of the best firewalls in the world."

More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Pros →

Cons
"From an administrative standpoint, I'd love to see it be a little better at remembering a device and location so that I don't have to continually authenticate. That's pretty much it.""I wouldn't mind seeing some options for remembering a device for a short period of time or a specific login, particularly for administrative engineering staff, as we may be logging in to four or five different services.""Technical support could be improved. I don't think all support should have to go through an agreement.""Duo Security should better organize its tile feature to organize applications better.""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.""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.""We found it difficult to integrate it into our broader product family of Microsoft tools and other applications used across our organization.""Duo Security could be improved with the addition of more applications."

More Cisco Duo Cons →

"The documentation is generally good, but they could provide a more detailed description of all the configuration steps. I have to search for information or call support. Palo Alto could add more knowledge base articles about configuration with screenshots and walkthroughs. That would be helpful. When configuring a product, you want to see examples of how it is done.""One area for improvement is for them to stay on top of keeping their CVEs on their platform up to date.""There is room for improvement in the multi-environment visibility, especially around containers.""I would like the solution to support a different type of authentication. We can't configure a secondary method for our portal.""The user interface could be better. They need to work a little bit on the console. It is similar to their firewalls but not exactly. They need to clean it up a bit.""Sometimes, you have these notifications sent out about changes in App-IDs, modifications in App-IDs, or even the introduction of entirely new App-IDs to replace. Sometimes, the recommendations are followed, but even then, when the package is installed on the firewall, it gets messed up. I remember a particular one was with Tableau, and suddenly, people weren't able to use Tableau, which is an analytics tool for business.""Though the monitoring is fine, the solution should improve its application graphs and interface monitoring.""When we deploy firewall rules via Panorama, we find it's a little bit slow. We have a global environment and might have 100 gateways or VPNs in the cloud. When we deploy something, it tries to deploy it one-by-one, and that can be slow."

More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "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."
  • "Duo Security is free."
  • "With regard to pricing, for a small business buying a one off, it's pretty expensive. If it's an enterprise that has thousands of employees, however, it's really nothing to protect your data because if your network goes down or it's breached, you're losing millions of dollars every minute. When it comes to a large enterprise, it's priced where it should be because you're talking business to business. You're not talking business to consumer."
  • "Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
  • "Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."
  • "The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."
  • "You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
  • "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."
  • More Cisco Duo Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The initial prices of Prisma Access were okay. But as soon as you start deploying Palo Alto gear, the support prices and the recurring prices, which are the major operational costs, tend to increase over time."
  • "Based on what I have heard from others, it is a pricey solution as compared to its peers, but I am not sure. However, considering the features that it offers, it is a break-even point. You get whatever they are promising."
  • "The pricing can be difficult because it came to us with another agreement, but it can be negotiated. I highly recommend people to compare this product's performance and pricing against BetterCloud, because I feel BetterCloud is better than Prisma SaaS if they're starting from scratch."
  • "It is pretty expensive. We have to balance the cost of some features. They need to work on some of the services and products, price-wise."
  • "The licensing model for this product is complicated and changes all the time, making it very hard for the user to comprehend the configuration."
  • "They price their products using credit modules."
  • "I would advise choosing your options according to your company's needs. Just go for what you want and do not pay for anything extra in terms of licensing. You need to determine how much bandwidth is required in your company network, and according to that, you should pay for the license. The mobile user license is based on the number of users who are going to use the VPN solution. You need to determine how many mobile users you are going to have in your network, and you should pay according to that. There are no other costs in addition to licensing, but if you go for the consultant services of Palo Alto networks to deliver the solution for you, then you need to pay something extra. That is not a part of licensing."
  • "The pricing is very friendly. It's not confusing to figure out your workload and how much you'd be paying for the solution."
  • More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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 and… more »
    Top Answer:I lead an IT organization that has a significant amount of technical debt, and we're not in a zero-trust architecture yet. I'm pushing in that direction. Duo helps me considerably with my identity in… more »
    Top Answer:The cost is very comparable to other solutions that I've used. I would in no way see any weaknesses in Duo over the other products, I would say it's a premium product, and it commands a premium price.
    Top Answer: We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure access service edge (SASE) designed to deliver network security in a… more »
    Top Answer:Palo Alto Firewall is one of the best firewalls in the world.
    Top Answer:I'm still comparing, but the solution is quite expensive.
    Ranking
    3rd
    out of 33 in ZTNA as a Service
    Views
    1,856
    Comparisons
    1,458
    Reviews
    43
    Average Words per Review
    756
    Rating
    8.9
    1st
    out of 33 in ZTNA as a Service
    Views
    8,254
    Comparisons
    5,689
    Reviews
    29
    Average Words per Review
    1,240
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Duo Security
    Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Prisma Access, GlobalProtect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager, Prisma SaaS by Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Access
    Learn More
    Overview

    Duo is a cloud-based security platform that protects access to all applications, for any user and device, from anywhere. It’s designed to be both easy to use and deploy, while providing complete endpoint visibility and control.

    Duo verifies users' identities with strong passwordless authentication and industry-leading multi-factor authentication. Paired with deep insights into your users’ devices, Duo gives you the policies and control you need to limit access based on endpoint or user risk. Users get a consistent login experience with Duo's single sign-on that delivers centralized access to both on-premises and cloud applications.

    With Duo, you can protect against compromised credentials and risky devices, as well as unwanted access to your applications and data. This combination of user and device trust builds a strong foundation for a zero trust security model.

    Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks provides consistent security for all users and applications across your remote networks. Prisma Access grants users safe access to the cloud and data center applications and the internet as well. In addition, the solution combines all of your security and networking capabilities into a single cloud-delivered platform, enabling flexible hybrid workforces.

    Prisma Access can be managed two ways:

    1. Cloud Managed
    2. Panorama Managed

    Prisma Access delivers both networking and security services, including:

    • SD-WAN
    • VPN
    • Zero Trust network access (ZTNA)
    • Quality of service (QoS)
    • Clean Pipe
    • Firewall as a service (FWaaS)
    • DNS Security
    • Threat Prevention
    • Cloud secure web gateway (SWG)
    • Data loss prevention (DLP)
    • Cloud access security broker (CASB)

    Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Features

    Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks has many valuable key features including: App-ID, User-ID, Device-ID, SSL Decryption, Dynamic User Group (DUG) Monitoring, AI/ML-Based Detection, IoT Security, Reporting, URL Filtering, Enterprise Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM)*, Logging, Policy Automation, Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), and many more.

    Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks include:

    • Security: Prisma Access gives you consistent security to protect against cyberattacks, with enforcement of policy at every location. By implementing Prisma Access, you also gain protection that works to prevent known and unknown malware, exploits, credential theft, command and control, and many other attack vectors across all ports and protocols.

    • Global connectivity: Prisma Access provides global coverage through use of its connectivity layer.

    • Scalability: With Prisma Access, scaling is automatically managed and is scalable, flexible, and agile.

    • Instant deployment: Deployment is fast, eliminating wasted time that may otherwise be associated with setting up a solution, operating it, or shipping hardware in order to get started.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

    users who are currently using the solution.

    PeerSpot user Partha D., Global Network Tech Lead at a computer software company, speaks about his experience using the product, saying, "It protects all app traffic so that users can gain access to all apps. Unlike other solutions that only work from ports 80 and 443, which are predominantly for web traffic, Prisma Access covers all protocols and works on all traffic patterns... The most sophisticated attacks can arise from sources that are not behind 80/443."

    Tejas J., a Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a computer software company, mentions that "it is geographically dispersed, and it sits on top of Google and AWS platforms. Therefore, you don't face the standard issues, such as latency or bandwidth issues, that you usually face in the case of on-prem data centers.

    Another PeerSpot reviewer, Max I., Associate Director at Cognizant, comments that "Security is absolutely spot-on, really top-notch. It's the result of all the components that come together, such as the HIP [Host Information Profile] and components like Forcepoint, providing end-user content inspection, and antivirus. It incorporates DLP features and that's fantastic because Prisma Access makes sure that all of the essential prerequisites are in place before a user can log in or can be tunneled into."

    Offer
    Learn more about Cisco Duo
    Learn more about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks
    Sample Customers
    Threadless, Yelp, Etsy, Eventbrite
    Concord Hospital, State of Colorado, Essilor International, RheinLand Versicherungsgruppe, University of Westminster, Universidade Nove de Julho, SPAR Austria, CAME Group, ZipRealty, Greenhill & Co., IKT Agder, Aviva Stadium, Animal Logic, Management & Training Corporation, Brigham Young University Hawaii, School District of Chilliwack
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Government8%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company48%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    University4%
    Government4%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise47%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise57%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise41%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise68%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cisco Duo vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cisco Duo is ranked 3rd in ZTNA as a Service with 47 reviews while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 1st in ZTNA as a Service with 27 reviews. Cisco Duo is rated 8.8, while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Duo writes "Helps reduce the risk of a breach and is easy to deploy and onboard". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks writes "Makes us part of a bigger security ecosystem with updates taken care of for us, but pricing and support need work". Cisco Duo is most compared with Microsoft Entra ID, Yubico YubiKey, Fortinet FortiToken, Fortinet FortiAuthenticator and Thales Authenticators, whereas Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Netskope , Cisco Umbrella, Zscaler Private Access, Prisma SD-WAN and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. See our Cisco Duo vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks report.

    See our list of best ZTNA as a Service vendors.

    We monitor all ZTNA as a Service reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.