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Cisco Duo vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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 Single Sign-On (SSO)
4th
Ranking in Access Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
13th
Ranking in Access Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.2%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.0%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.2%
Symantec Siteminder3.0%
Other93.8%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

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.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior technical Consultant at CA Africa
Improved user experience with seamless integration and easy installation
The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows. Additionally, it is very beneficial for deploying single sign-on sessions between different windows on a web browser, provided I am connected to the right identity provider. That seamless integration significantly improves user experience and efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Duo Security improved my organization by helping us secure all access points within the company infrastructure."
"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."
"It meets our security needs very well, it is easy to use, and documentation is also available."
"It's easy to deploy. It's easy to manage. It's easy to integrate with other applications."
"The ease of deploying Cisco Duo Security and onboarding has greatly benefited our customers."
"Another feature is the single pane of glass management. That's important for analytics and also for troubleshooting. It means there's one place that you go to at least start the troubleshooting process."
"My experience with Cisco Duo's strong security authentication system has been good; it performs very well when logging in."
"The experience my clients have with Cisco Duo is mainly good, there are sometimes some problems, but not major ones, so it is a solid security product."
"Authentication Authorization for our websites are important because all the sites need authentication for security purposes and that has been handled pretty well all these years with SSO."
"The solution has saved our company from a lot of problems."
"Whatever you're considering, this is a good solution."
"It has performed very well, it does what we need it to do, it's reliable, and it doesn't impose any overhead on the user or on the platform."
"It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate."
"SiteMinder is an industry leading solution as everyone is using it."
"It has the ability to authenticate and authorize users. It is the main feature for our security."
"The Directory is secure. It's our user store, and it's important to keep our members safe. The product does well with that."
 

Cons

"I would appreciate it if Duo Security could improve its integrations with Windows Hello."
"It is not easy to maintain network connectivity."
"Cisco Duo did not help reduce the cost of the overall authentication method that we have in our company; instead, it increased, obviously."
"There was an issue related to integration with third parties."
"The cost will become expensive for large user accounts."
"Cisco Duo can be improved with better ways to set users up. Currently, we might not be doing it perfectly as we're having them email in phone numbers to get them set up with Duo Mobile."
"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."
"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."
"Some of the new protocols, like OAuth 2.0, could be improved."
"As we are moving in to the mobility space, this is where we really see SiteMinder and their other product really come together to provide a solution base to a different area where the IoT is coming, the different business communications are happening. All of those things require authentication and we really want to see this product grow into that role."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"All of the feedback within our team for CA Support is not good. It really is on a very low level, but then it is very specific for CA SSO."
"Yes it can be complex, I think that's one area we have already given feedback to the product management, that is a little complex to get the set up and get it going and the upgrade process is very complex."
"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."
"Unfortunately, SSO doesn't really allow us to do that. We have to basically do it through brute force."
"One of the features that needs improvement is the capability of implementing single sign-on in cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a bit confusing because we're on a three-year plan with a certain number of licenses, and we've gone over that number. They told us that when we renew, they will add all these licenses. We've expanded quickly, so everyone's kind of scared because no one knows what the bill is with the long pricing cycle."
"From a reseller perspective, it's still challenging to explain the whole license strategy to a client, so we really have to be ahead of that for all the true forward conversations."
"The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."
"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
"It was very 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."
"It's very simple. Its price is fair. We use the hardware tokens as well. You get what you pay for. In terms of licensing, Cisco has very complicated products, but Duo Security was surprisingly easy."
"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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"Siteminder is a little costly. You pay for licensing, and they offer packages, so if you have less users, then you have to buy different products at different prices. If you have more of a user base, then the package is different. They also include other features—for example, if you have a database and you're using Siteminder, then it's good to use a Semantic-specific database, but if you are using less, then you have to purchase the database separately. Whereas if you are going for a bigger license, then it comes within the package. It depends on which plan you are using."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Insurance Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Performing Arts
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise58
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

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...
What needs improvement with Symantec Siteminder?
Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features. Currently, multi-factor authentication is available as a separate solution, and it ...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Siteminder?
I deploy and support Symantec Siteminder ( /products/symantec-siteminder-reviews ). I have been a partner and reseller.
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.