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Cisco Duo vs RSA Adaptive Authentication comparison

 

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
157
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Access Management (4th), 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
26th
Average Rating
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.8%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Adaptive Authentication is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.8%
RSA Adaptive Authentication1.4%
Other94.8%
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

"Duo offers dual-factor authentication for our logins; I put in my credentials and hit go, then I get an alert on my Apple Watch and approve it, and that part is just phenomenal."
"The features of Cisco Duo have benefited our organization in terms of security level because before, it was not secure—anybody could get your password and log in—however, with that second layer of defense, it helps us and helps our community."
"I am happy that we went with Cisco Duo because it is just easier to use."
"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."
"Cisco Duo has improved my operational efficiency and reduced costs in areas such as authentication, IT support, and security operations significantly."
"It is very easy for users to enroll, and there are a lot of insights that we get from using the app on devices that people use to authenticate."
"It provides single-pane-of-glass management, which is pretty easy and straightforward. Because we manage multiple access tiers, it allows us to essentially manage everything from one viewpoint and not have many viewpoints for the same product. This is important because it is a time and resource saver. It also saves us money."
"The features of Cisco Duo that I like the most are the simplicity, and the benefits of these features to my organization include security components and security authentication components."
"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."
"Once we started adopting these products, we've seen the fraud losses go down considerably."
"Risk Engine’s risk score, eFN, GeoIP, and device binding all coming together in the Policy Rules to decide when to escalate to MFA."
"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."
"It has reduced false positives greatly in our fraud detection ability."
"One of the most valuable features is the fraud detection capability with minimal friction in the customer experience."
 

Cons

"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 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 could definitely be improved, particularly regarding some of the reporting it does, as it currently lacks detail; for example, we had an issue where someone was getting prompted multiple times, but the console only detected it that one time."
"Often, people do not receive expiration messages, and sometimes, for security reasons, accounts get disabled without notifying the end user, so they mistakenly think something has gone wrong when it really just needs to be re-enabled on the external system."
"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."
"We had a lot of trouble configuring the password reset function, and as a result we now have a second channel that bypasses Duo to allow users to reset their password."
"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."
"Cisco Duo can be improved by including some more pieces as far as pattern analysis."
"The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated."
"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."
"It has taken years to implement."
"It's an okay solution. It's just old technology and it's time to move on."
"I would like to see a more adaptive type of solution, something that we could use on our web pages..."
"RSA Adaptive Authentication lacks a mechanism to verify the identity of a new user in the Enrollment event workflow."
"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."
"Reporting modules is one of the major areas that can be improved further."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"It was very reasonable."
"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."
"I only need the solution for IT staff, which makes it relatively cheap. If I deployed it for the whole company, it would be costly, so it depends on the number of users. Duo Security is affordable compared to other products in the segment."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Keep the proxy service layer on premises. That consumes SaaS security services on the back-end."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise26
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?
My experience with the pricing, the setup cost, and the licensing of Cisco Duo is that it is really inexpensive in the first place, but the value that I get in return is hard to beat, especially wh...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
For the next release, Cisco Duo could be improved by adding touchless authentication and biometric features.
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: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.