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Cisco Duo vs StrongDM 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.9
Cisco Duo enhances security, reduces costs, and improves efficiency with multifactor authentication and simplified management, boosting ROI and satisfaction.
Sentiment score
5.1
StrongDM streamlines access management, enhancing efficiency and security, while reducing costs and manual tasks without specific savings measurement.
We were able to implement zero trust extremely quickly because of the platform and its ongoing developments, including Cisco Duo Network Gateway, which enabled that transition to zero trust extremely quickly.
Global Associate Director, Services at a leisure / travel company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Not having MFA means you cannot put a price tag on that because you will be hit with ransomware immediately.
Director at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The biggest return on investment was the ease of use for the end users to have that secondary authentication when logging into the critical systems.
Manager, Data Center at a real estate/law firm with 11-50 employees
I can definitely say that it saved us time, and a lot of it. Probably months worth of time in engineering and IT support.
Director at LivePerson
The onboarding of temporary privileged access accelerated significantly, allowing us to release consultants much faster than before, saving considerable money.
Dev Ops Engineer And Solution Architect at Scania
We need fewer employees now because StrongDM saves our time by eliminating manual work.
Senior Analyst at Toll Holdings Limited
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Cisco Duo's customer service is highly rated for professionalism and efficiency, though complex issue response speed needs improvement.
Sentiment score
6.6
StrongDM's customer support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, with high ratings, helpful documentation, and eventual assistance.
They got back to us quickly, were nice, and gave us what we needed.
Infrastructure Engineer at a government with 501-1,000 employees
I would rate their support 10 out of 10.
Senior Network Engineer Specialist at Zenith Comp Co.,Ltd.
I would rate support for Cisco Duo a 10, as I have never had a negative experience.
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
They responded quickly to issues and were readily available for calls rather than waiting for email confirmations.
Dev Ops Engineer And Solution Architect at Scania
The technical support is responsive and knowledgeable.
Senior Data Engineer at a non-profit with 1,001-5,000 employees
They also have very good documentation, where they often ask us to refer to a particular document but can provide excellent on-call support.
Senior Analyst at Toll Holdings Limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Duo offers scalable authentication with easy management, seamless cloud integration, flexible licensing, and efficient growth support for organizations.
Sentiment score
6.7
StrongDM efficiently scales with minimal latency, supports growing environments, and requires configurations for optimal performance in large settings.
In my last contracting position, it was a large one for a major worldwide airline that had hundreds of thousands of devices that could use Cisco Duo, and it scaled very well.
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
You would not need many more engineers to manage Cisco Duo even if we scale up to 500 employees because it is so simple to manage.
Manager, Customer Success at SRC.SI sistemske integracije d.o.o.
Cisco Duo is scalable for organizational growth.
Technical Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If a larger organization such as Microsoft or Dell adopted it, there would be more privileged accounts, showing the product's potential to grow if issues in maintenance and crashing are resolved.
Iam Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
StrongDM's scalability is impressive; it is highly available, and we never perceived any latency issues.
Dev Ops Engineer And Solution Architect at Scania
StrongDM has very large and good scalability, capable of providing a million data in a second, showcasing its great scalability.
Senior Analyst at Toll Holdings Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cisco Duo is stable and reliable, with minor bugs resolved quickly, earning high user satisfaction for consistent performance.
Sentiment score
8.0
StrongDM is stable, highly rated for performance, with minor gateway issues, providing reliable access management that aids operations.
We have not had any Cisco Duo outages across all the companies I have worked for that utilize Cisco Duo.
Senior Engineer at Frontline Fighter Ltd
The stability has been excellent.
Manager, Customer Success at SRC.SI sistemske integracije d.o.o.
I did not notice any downtime or crashes with Cisco Duo.
CTO at Red IT Solutions
The gateway sometimes crashes, and you are unable to retrieve passwords.
Iam Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
StrongDM is very stable; I cannot recall experiencing a glitch.
Dev Ops Engineer And Solution Architect at Scania
I rate the stability of the product five out of ten because crashes sometimes happen when we are working on it.
Senior Network Security Engineer at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Duo needs better integration, competitive pricing, improved usability, enhanced device compatibility, and easier deployment to satisfy users.
StrongDM needs improvements in setup, integrations, documentation, protocols, MFA options, automations, and enterprise access processes.
If you don't have internet access, you can't access your computer, only local access is available.
Security and Network Team Lead
It lacks some dynamic identity management features compared to other products such as SailPoint.
Senior Iam Associate at Cognizant
Not only has the product been very good and we have done fewer support cases, but I think support overall has been very fast.
Network Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
StrongDM has limited MFA and passwordless options, relying heavily on time-based one-time passwords (OTP) or Duo, lacking support for true passwordless setups like biometrics or hardware YubiKeys, and it does not support per-session MFA.
Senior Analyst at Toll Holdings Limited
It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases.
Senior Data Engineer at a non-profit with 1,001-5,000 employees
It is difficult to find documentation or materials to review how it works, and there is less product material available in the market.
Senior Network Security Engineer at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Duo offers flexible, affordable pricing, with some users noting cost-effectiveness, but complexity arises when integrating with other solutions.
StrongDM offers robust cloud management and security with efficient setup, but some find its per-user pricing costly.
The pricing is acceptable to them.
Vice President at Next Info Tech Solutions Inc
Their website lists $3 per month per user for the Essential license.
Senior Network Engineer Specialist at Zenith Comp Co.,Ltd.
One of my customers recently received a billing statement charging 3,600 US dollars for 100 users for one year.
Sr. Network Security Engineer at Topnet Internet Services Provider. Riyadh, Saudi A
The setup cost was free, with technical staff aiding our onboarding, requiring us only to cover the license fee.
Dev Ops Engineer And Solution Architect at Scania
It was mentioned that while the product is rapidly gaining features, it might become cost-prohibitive for wider usage.
Senior Data Engineer at a non-profit with 1,001-5,000 employees
My thoughts on the pricing of StrongDM is that it is expensive.
Director at LivePerson
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Duo enhances security with easy MFA, extensive integrations, and user-friendly design, reducing login time and IT workload.
StrongDM enhances security and efficiency with centralized access, automated management, and integrations, ensuring seamless, secure operations and compliance.
From a management perspective, I appreciate that we can enroll or control devices on the back end for people who get a new phone and forget to handle Cisco Duo properly and need to add a new device.
Network Engineer at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
Our company benefits from all those features of Cisco Duo with confidence, and we feel very secure with it in terms of authentication of our logins.
Vice President at Next Info Tech Solutions Inc
The benefit of having a complete passwordless environment in our organization is that it's gotten people away from using the sticky note under their keyboard - which is a huge problem.
Director, Technology at Deer Creek High School
One of the most powerful tools in StrongDM is audit logging.
Senior Network Security Engineer at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)
Just-in-Time Access is the primary feature that works well and makes life easier for us here at LivePerson.
Director at LivePerson
The best features for us are the centralized access control and the detailed audit logging, which allow us to provide temporary privileged access without managing VPNs ourselves.
Dev Ops Engineer And Solution Architect at Scania
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Access Management
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Authentication Systems (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (3rd)
StrongDM
Ranking in Access Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.2%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StrongDM is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.2%
StrongDM0.8%
Other96.0%
Access Management
 

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.
MX
Dev Ops Engineer And Solution Architect at Scania
Centralized access has improved privileged control and now provides strong audit visibility
I believe StrongDM can improve its initial setup and onboarding experience for larger enterprise environments like Scania, where we have a lot of processes. Integrating different teams, access policies, and existing identity workflows requires substantial planning. Additionally, I think the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible for operational teams, though new teams find it manageable. Once the platform is fully integrated, it provides significant value. Apart from the onboarding experience, I would also mention that the templates for enterprise onboarding and policy setup could benefit from innovative thinking tailored to organizations managing large AWS and Kubernetes workloads. Enhanced customization in dashboards and reporting would further ease operations and provide better insights.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise79
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
 

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?
It is a little bit expensive, but with security, we cannot compromise on it.
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
To improve Cisco Duo, we have some third-party hardware, and for integrations with that, we need more user-friendly integrations since third-party integration can present a lot of compatibility iss...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StrongDM?
I cannot disclose the pricing details, but I find it competitive compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with StrongDM?
StrongDM can be improved in many ways. For example, the access approval workflow could be faster. We face a challenge where we sometimes need temporary access to production but have to wait for an ...
What is your primary use case for StrongDM?
In our environment, we have managed Linux servers, cloud resources, and production systems, and we use StrongDM as a privileged access management solution. StrongDM authenticates users through the ...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. StrongDM and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.