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Cisco Duo vs Safe-T Secure Application Access comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (5th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cisco Duo
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
156
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (5th), Authentication Systems (2nd), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (3rd)
Safe-T Secure Application A...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (34th), Access Management (31st), ZTNA (19th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
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.
it_user787671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer
Needs to be easier to configure and to display logs more simply
We use only it for scanning files for viruses. That's the only feature we use in this product It needs to be easier to configure, it should be something that's working well with other sources. It should be something that allows me to see the logs simply. One to three years. Sometimes it doesn't…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"I rate it highly because it's something that can grow with you, whether you have very little security or a lot of security, whether it's already Cisco or not, and whether you have a mixed mess that you're trying to put into some kind of order."
"The authentication process is very smooth and secure."
"Cisco Duo has improved my operational efficiency and reduced costs in areas such as authentication, IT support, and security operations."
"Cisco Duo benefits the company by increasing the security footprint, and it is easy to manage users, disable users, or bypass if needed in case of an emergency."
"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."
"Cisco Duo has been very reliable from my point of view so far, as I have not had any issues with it."
"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."
"Overall, it meets all my needs, including price point, and I've been very happy with it."
"Safe-T SDA has allowed my organization to secure my office applications and makes it harder for hackers to be able to hack into my internal office web applications."
"You can easily integrate it and fit the system to your organization's needs, and that's a very huge advantage."
"It's easy to use over the web. A user who is not in the office can use it and securely insert files."
"Safe-T is very good for users because it has a plug-in for Outlook."
"This product allows us to actually send it straight from our email to the other person's email in a safe way, where we can meet all our regulations and still keep the data in our control."
"If you need a solution for sending big files to customers or for receiving large files from them, this is a very good solution."
"We use only it for scanning files for viruses."
"the security level is very high. After we tested it and checked all the security aspects of the product, we found that it's highly secure."
 

Cons

"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"The endpoint-type solution is an area that needs some improvement."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"Its pricing could be better."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to other vendors, Cisco Duo is on the pricey end."
"The cost will become expensive for large user accounts."
"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."
"Technical support could be improved. I don't think all support should have to go through an agreement."
"I evaluate the stability and reliability of the solution as somewhat tricky. Cisco Duo Access Gateway is mostly VM-based, and while I'm not sure whether there is an on-premises hardware-based solution, having this VM-based solution can be buggy."
"We had some trouble with the password reset function."
"One important thing that we haven't found in this product is the ability to provide a read-only view for documents. Also, the ability for the customer to add annotations to these documents."
"Better UI. A better UI for the people that manage all the processes of Safe-T. Some of the UI is not as intuitive as you would like it to be."
"Setting up Safe-T SDE is very complex. It is not straightforward, and it requires much understanding on the concepts of the product."
"The Outlook agent is not working well for installing it in the entire office."
"In terms of improvement, they need to be much more strict regarding the roadmap, about timelines and when new features will be up in production."
"The cloud solution is not that great especially with Swiss customers."
"I'm not sure what advice I would give others about this product because I don't like Safe-T."
"When we have something that we want improved, it takes a little bit of time until it can be fixed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"Our licensing fee is currently on an annual basis."
"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."
"Duo Security's pricing is good, fair, and very comparable to today's market."
"The pricing was a lot more than what we were paying for our previous solution."
"Its price is reasonable. It is not highly expensive."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
10%
Performing Arts
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Media Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise78
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
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 Du...
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 th...
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

iBoss Cloud Platform
Duo Security
Safe-T SDA, Safe-T, Safe-T Software-Defined Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Information Not Available
Government of Israel, eviCore Healthcore, Glen Imaging, Sarin, LBG, Rollomatic, Boegli-Gravures SA, Banque Heritage, Groupe Minoteries, Temenos, ZEK, RLM Finsbury, Harel Insurance, Meitav Dash
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Safe-T Secure Application Access and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.