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Cisco Duo vs RSA Adaptive Authentication comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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
163
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 (7th)
RSA Adaptive Authentication
Ranking in Authentication Systems
24th
Average Rating
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.7%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Adaptive Authentication is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.7%
RSA Adaptive Authentication1.4%
Other94.9%
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.
Directorc4e7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Cyber Security at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
We need better ease of use; the product is overly complicated
There are many use cases that we have defined based on our business needs Ingestion of logs and raising alert space on those logs are the most valuable features. The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated. It has taken years to implement. We used RSA…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Compared to Cisco, the general support I experience is fantastic; I have no complaints about it."
"Overall, it meets all my needs, including price point, and I've been very happy with it."
"My total rating for Cisco Duo is ten out of ten."
"Duo Security just adds another layer; it's a great addition to the security of any network infrastructure."
"The ease of deploying Cisco Duo Security and onboarding has greatly benefited our customers."
"In my opinion, the best features Cisco Duo offers include its 2FA authentication, which is very good, everything is perfect about the features, it is very easy to use, and the integration with other systems is very good."
"I appreciate the features that Cisco Duo offers."
"Risk Engine’s risk score, eFN, GeoIP, and device binding all coming together in the Policy Rules to decide when to escalate to MFA."
"One of the most valuable features is the fraud detection capability with minimal friction in the customer experience."
"The most valuable feature is the stock tokens. That works the best for us."
"Ingestion of logs and raising alert space on those logs are the most valuable features."
"The capability to manage your business policy related to security when required without vendor involvement."
"Our customer are seeing value from the product, as they experience cost reductions. They can stop fraud from their customers, then their customers can have a better experience from their services."
"Once we started adopting these products, we've seen the fraud losses go down considerably."
"It has reduced false positives greatly in our fraud detection ability."
 

Cons

"Reducing or eliminating the "telephony credits" system used by Duo would be great."
"I do not think Cisco Duo is the best option on the market thus far."
"It could be a little bit more intuitive when it comes to the sign-up process. I know they send out an email, but sometimes our users get a little confused. It could be an end-user problem, but Cisco could work on that a little."
"Cisco Duo can be improved by including some more pieces as far as pattern analysis."
"I believe Cisco Duo needs to be improved on the delay process because there is a delay when we send a Duo Push or when we are signing into any applications."
"Duo Security could improve by being more compatible with other vendors."
"One issue I see is when the device is offline."
"Cisco Duo is stable, but occasionally there are emails about incidents that affect some services temporarily."
"Reporting modules is one of the major areas that can be improved further."
"It has taken years to implement."
"It's an okay solution. It's just old technology and it's time to move on."
"Better filters when searching for events. The current features for current filters when searching fraud events are not very comprehensive. You can only filter by certain fields in the transaction."
"The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated."
"I would like to see a more adaptive type of solution, something that we could use on our web pages..."
"I think I would like to see them use more of our data, and give us more ability to control or configure how the protection patterns work for a specific business, and also provide more transparency into the methodology."
"RSA Adaptive Authentication lacks a mechanism to verify the identity of a new user in the Enrollment event workflow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."
"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."
"The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."
"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"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."
"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 falls in line with everything else."
"Keep the proxy service layer on premises. That consumes SaaS security services on the back-end."
"You may need to opt for second best if funding is low and the number of users is huge. However, the pricing is able to be negotiated if your user figures are huge."
"The pricing is $50 per head, yearly."
"Customers need to deploy the solution in a very expensive infrastructure. RSA should should think about a less expensive infrastructure for customers because the solution costs around $100,000, and the infrastructure needed to support that solution may be even more expensive than that price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Construction Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise82
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

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?
Regarding the pricing, what actually happened was that we got the product purchased through our HQ, so the costing aspect and all those things sit with our HQ. I do not have much information in ter...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
I do not have a straight answer for how Cisco Duo can be improved at this time. With the implementation that we are going through right now, I was asking a question about how we can use Cisco Duo o...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ADP, Ameritas, Partners Healthcare
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.