Cisco Duo vs RSA Adaptive Authentication comparison

Cisco and RSA are both solutions in the Authentication Systems category. Cisco is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5, while RSA is ranked #26. Cisco holds a 9.2% mindshare in AS, compared to RSA’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of RSA users who would recommend it.

Cisco Duo

Read 74 Cisco Duo reviews

6,878 Views
5,571 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Read 6 RSA Adaptive Authentication reviews

386 Views
278 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Cisco Duo

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Cisco Duo and RSA Adaptive Authentication are two key products in the identity authentication market. Cisco Duo stands out with user satisfaction in pricing and support, while RSA Adaptive Authentication excels in features and is perceived as worth the investment.

What features are offered by Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo's valuable features include ease of integration, robust security measures, and straightforward deployment. RSA Adaptive Authentication offers comprehensive risk-based authentication, extensive analytics capabilities, and advanced threat identification and prevention. Users find RSA Adaptive Authentication's features more beneficial due to its advanced security functionalities.

What areas of improvement can be found in Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo users suggest enhancements in multi-device management, request more detailed reporting, and better scalability options. RSA Adaptive Authentication users highlight the need for a more intuitive setup process, improved customer support, and a more user-friendly interface. Overall, Cisco Duo's areas for improvement are less significant compared to RSA Adaptive Authentication's larger setup challenges.

How is the ease of deployment and customer service of Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo users appreciate its straightforward deployment and proactive customer service. In contrast, RSA Adaptive Authentication faces criticism for its complex deployment process and less responsive support. Cisco Duo is recognized for being easier to deploy and having superior customer service.

What setup costs and ROI can be seen with Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo offers competitive setup costs and a clear ROI. RSA Adaptive Authentication requires a higher initial investment but delivers strong long-term ROI through advanced security features. While Cisco Duo is more cost-effective initially, RSA Adaptive Authentication's ROI justifies its higher price.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication

July 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (2nd)

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Ranking in Authentication Systems

26th

Average Rating

6.8

Number of Reviews

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 RSA Adaptive Authentication is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Authentication Systems

Featured Reviews

Thomas Botts

Senior Network Engineer at a educational organization with 1-10 employees

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.

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Directorc4e7

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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"Duo has allowed us to add an additional layer of security to our organization and to establish trust for every access request and secures our environment."

"Cisco Duo has benefited our company overall by giving us the ability to have multi-factor authentication."

"The solution is pretty secure."

"The two-factor authentication is valuable because that is the use case for which we are using it."

"By deploying Duo, we have virtually eliminated the risk of direct deposit redirection as a result of credentials that have been compromised via phishing."

"The most valuable feature of Duo Security is the ability for the user to easily approve access. The application prompts the user, and they can see the location and the IP address. This makes it easy for the user to approve it and go through the process of logging in to the VPN."

"It is very easy. Having just wrapped up my tenure at Cisco, it was used day in and day out for security. It was always easy to log in and not have to worry about logging in multiple times."

More Cisco Duo pros

"The most valuable feature is the stock tokens. That works the best for us."

"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."

"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."

Cons

"Duo Security should better organize its tile feature to organize applications better."

"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."

"Cisco Duo is a modern product that does not support older applications, lacking backward compatibility. It should work on supporting legacy applications and legacy approaches."

"Integration between Duo Security and FTDs needs improvement. Integrating Next Generation Firewall safety with Duo Security currently requires a proxy agent between Active Directory and the appliance. It's an additional factor that we need to think about. It would be great to have direct integration with FTD so that we don't have to worry about middleware products. For the rest of the Cisco Secure solutions, the APIs need improvement."

"I wish that the support would be a little bit more prompt and a little bit more flexible because there are certain things that they will do and certain things they won't do."

"We have a 24 hour timer for our Duo cookie and we would like to reduce this to a shorter time when using Duo."

"The pain point for us at one point was the Duo Authentication Proxy since we're on-premises and not in the cloud. We had to have a proxy machine that's in our DMZ to talk to Duo for us. The configuration of that was a little complicated."

"The technical engineers in the first line of support should improve their knowledge."

More Cisco Duo cons

"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."

"It has taken years to implement."

"RSA Adaptive Authentication lacks a mechanism to verify the identity of a new user in the Enrollment event workflow."

"I would like to see a more adaptive type of solution, something that we could use on our web pages..."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."

"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 pricing was a lot more than what we were paying for our previous solution."

"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."

"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."

More Cisco Duo pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

42%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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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.

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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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Comparisons

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Duo

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Cisco Duo

Compared 13% of the time

Fortinet FortiToken vs Cisco Duo

Compared 11% of the time

Yubico YubiKey vs Cisco Duo

Compared 8% of the time

RSA SecurID vs Cisco Duo

Compared 4% of the time

More Cisco Duo Competitors

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 58% of the time

RSA Authentication Manager vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 42% of the time

More RSA Adaptive Authentication Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo

August 2025

Download Cisco Duo product report

Buyer's Guide

Authentication Systems

July 2025

Download RSA Adaptive Authentication product report

Also Known As

Duo Security

No data available

Overview

Cisco Duo is a cloud-based identity security tool offering easy and wide-ranging access protection for users and devices worldwide. It assures identity-first security with clear visibility across multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments.

Cisco Duo provides robust multi-factor authentication and seamless integration capabilities with existing infrastructures. Appreciated for its stability and speed, it supports distributed workforces by securing VPN access, corporate networks, and cloud services. Duo’s comprehensive identity ecosystem supports easy deployment and management through a single-pane-of-glass management interface. It seamlessly merges with popular platforms like Active Directory and Office 365 across diverse hardware.

What are Cisco Duo’s Essential Features?

Multi-Factor Authentication: Offers secure access with options like push notifications and hardware tokens.
Seamless Integration: Easily fits with existing systems and third-party applications.
User-Friendly Management: Provides centralized control with a single-pane-of-glass interface.
Wide Compatibility: Supports broad applications and devices, enhancing security management.
Stable and Fast: Reliable speed and intuitive interaction for users across platforms.

What Benefits and ROI Can Cisco Duo Users Expect?

Enhanced Security: Increases protection with versatile MFA options for critical resources.
Ease of Use: Simplifies deployment and management with intuitive interfaces.
Scalability: Adapts to growing needs with broad compatibility and integration support.
Support for Distributed Workforces: Ensures secure remote access for teams anywhere.

Cisco Duo finds extensive applications across education, finance, retail, and government sectors by fortifying network and application access security. Organizations leverage it for its MFA capabilities, integrating with ERP systems, ensuring protected connectivity with VPN and cloud-based services, crucial in maintaining secure and efficient operations.

Cisco

RSA Adaptive Authentication is a risk-based two-factor authentication solution providing cost-effective protection for an entire user base. Adaptive Authentication secures online portals, SSL VPNs, and web access management portals for different types of organizations in the healthcare, insurance, enterprise, government, financial services, and other industries. Based on the transparent two-factor authentication technology, Adaptive Authentication works behind the scenes to authenticate end users and transactions based on individual end user and device profiles. In addition, Adaptive Authentication uses the RSA Risk Engine to estimate the level of risk for the specific activity and uses information collected from the RSAeFraudNetwork (a cross-organization, cross-application, cross-border online fraud network) to identify fraudulent activities. The Policy Manager determines what actions must be performed, depending on the risk score and other parameters.

RSA

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ADP, Ameritas, Partners Healthcare

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication

July 2025

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