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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
160
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (3rd)
RSA Adaptive Authentication
Ranking in Authentication Systems
25th
Average Rating
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.7%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Adaptive Authentication is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.7%
RSA Adaptive Authentication1.3%
Other95.0%
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

"Without Cisco Duo, that would be very tough because Cisco Duo is a one-stop-shop, especially with their console."
"The single pane of glass management is very important and it is part of the reason we went with Duo, and anything we can do to save time for our administrators, help desk staff, and engineers, is valuable to us."
"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."
"Cisco Duo is so integral to our core operations that we cannot perform any task without it."
"The push notifications and the integrations they offer are valuable. Their mobile app is very useful. It is very easy to use."
"Since we onboarded it, since we started using Cisco Duo, we have never had any operational glitch."
"My advice for other companies that are considering getting Cisco Duo is to try it, and you will be amazed at how easy and how productive this tool is."
"I love Duo Security's push notifications. It's simple, fast, and secure. From the user's perspective, the solution is seamless. The security aspect is great."
"The most valuable feature is the stock tokens. That works the best for us."
"One of the most valuable features is the fraud detection capability with minimal friction in the customer experience."
"Risk Engine’s risk score, eFN, GeoIP, and device binding all coming together in the Policy Rules to decide when to escalate to MFA."
"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."
"Ingestion of logs and raising alert space on those logs are the most valuable features."
"It has reduced false positives greatly in our fraud detection ability."
"The capability to manage your business policy related to security when required without vendor involvement."
 

Cons

"For upgrades, there should be a better notification of when they're coming out. We always have a testing phase, so we need to be ahead of it. It takes us longer before we can upgrade to the newest version."
"I would like to see Duo Security increase the time that the users have to log into the devices. The maximum time interval is 50 minutes at the moment, and I would like it to be 60 minutes. When you try to log into a device and have to authenticate yourself, sometimes it's not very pleasant. It's not the best thing particularly if you have to do this every 50 minutes, which is the maximum time that Duo gives. This makes it difficult to use and does not save time."
"Cisco can further enhance the integrations, as they possess exceptional integrations with various providers' products and feature sets."
"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."
"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."
"I am not certain how Cisco Duo has helped me evolve in my IAM strategy from simple authentication to a more comprehensive identity security platform."
"Cisco Duo is a fully cloud-based solution. It would be beneficial if Cisco provided a fully on-premise solution."
"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."
"I would like to see a more adaptive type of solution, something that we could use on our web pages..."
"It has taken years to implement."
"It's an okay solution. It's just old technology and it's time to move on."
"Reporting modules is one of the major areas that can be improved further."
"The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated."
"RSA Adaptive Authentication lacks a mechanism to verify the identity of a new user in the Enrollment event workflow."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Cisco has the most expensive products because market leaders tend to charge a lot."
"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."
"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."
"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"It falls in line with everything else."
"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"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."
"Keep the proxy service layer on premises. That consumes SaaS security services on the back-end."
"The pricing is $50 per head, yearly."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Construction Company
16%
Healthcare Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise79
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 Cisco Duo's affordability for the Ukrainian market, I think it is affordable. It depends on an installation base. For a medium and mid-range market, I think it is a fully affordable price...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
Cisco Duo is a fully cloud-based solution. It would be beneficial if Cisco provided a fully on-premise solution. I have discussed this with the local Cisco office in Kyiv regarding any possibility ...
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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: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.