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Cisco Duo vs Secret Double Octopus comparison

 

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

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Authentication Systems
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
Secret Double Octopus
Ranking in Authentication Systems
32nd
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Passwordless Authentication (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 4.3%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Secret Double Octopus is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo4.3%
Secret Double Octopus0.7%
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.
Gaurav Gaurav - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
A solution with good capabilities across a wide range of platforms that comes with a useful mobile application, but upgrades cause issues
We have noticed that patches and upgrades cause issues with how the application functions, due to the lack of stability of the product. However, we would recommend the solution because it has good capabilities, across a wide range of platforms, and the mobile application allows for use via Bluetooth, so users don't have to be connected to the internet. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With respect to our users feeling safe, secure, supported, and included, Duo Security is among the best solutions that we have ever used."
"Duo is a very consistent product and flexible in how it can be deployed and has good support."
"Cisco Duo is rock solid in terms of stability and reliability."
"Cisco Duo is a simple and effective tool that gives detailed information about users who connect to your domain."
"It's a lot easier for our end users to connect to our network. You don't have to type in a code. You get push notifications, that's probably the best thing about it. The fewer clicks they have to do to be online, the better it is. They can easily get into the network and do remote work."
"It meets our security needs very well, it is easy to use, and documentation is also available."
"Once you break that curve, it gives end users a sense of security where they know that if they're trying to sign on to Office 365 or some other application, they need to authenticate with Duo to make sure that they have the multi-factor authentication."
"Duo features benefit my company by making logins more secure and simpler. Everything is in one box, so we don't have multiple servers trying to do the same thing."
"This solution has a mobile application, which comes with multi-factor authentication; allowing for more flexible usage, without having to sacrifice system security."
"This solution has a mobile application, which comes with multi-factor authentication; allowing for more flexible usage, without having to sacrifice system security."
 

Cons

"They could just continue to add more integrations."
"Duo was clearly purchased, and Cisco has a lot of other panels for their Firepower products, et cetera. They need to continue bringing it, Umbrella, and the endpoint pieces even more together and make the integration a little more seamless among all of them."
"The pricing for Cisco Duo is kind of okay, but most of the time, your competitor is someone like Microsoft who gives it out for free with their offering, making it tough to argue with customers why they should spend additional dollars to also get Duo to improve their setup, but I think the pricing is fair."
"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."
"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."
"I'm unsure how to disable the ping notification sound on my phone when using Cisco Duo."
"I wouldn't mind seeing some options for remembering a device for a short period of time or a specific login, particularly for administrative engineering staff, as we may be logging in to four or five different services."
"Certain customers can not use this product because it is cloud-based."
"The product suffers from frequent disturbances in service, that have impacted our end users when we deploy software updates."
"The product suffers from frequent disturbances in service, that have impacted our end users when we deploy software updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."
"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."
"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."
"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."
"Price-wise, the solution has been very, very reasonable...Licensing is the last thing I think about Duo Security because it's so easy, and I had no problems with it."
"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Hospitality Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise58
No data available
 

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, setup costs, and licensing of Cisco Duo shows that it is a cost above our Entra costs, which we are always reviewing. The benefits outweigh the cost in terms of its ...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
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. We can work on making it faster and spee...
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Also Known As

Duo Security
Octopus Authenticator
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
United Technologies (UTC), American Family Association, ASL Airlines France, BNP Paribas, A Fortune 50 Bank, Bingham County Idaho, Britannia Financial Services, Carolina Behavioral Health Alliance LLC, European Commission, County of Midland Michigan, JRM Construction Management, Greer Commission of Public Works, Poste Italiane, Kennedy Wilson Europe, Key Mechanical, Marker Therapeutics Inc, Mediawan, Ministero Dell'interno, FairPrice, NTUC Health, Mercatus, TBC, Techni-Photo, Tinsa Group, Yates Law, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Z-Medica Corporation, A Member of the 5 largest US law firms.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cisco, Okta and others in Authentication Systems. Updated: April 2026.
894,668 professionals have used our research since 2012.