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Cisco Duo vs Symantec VIP Access Manager comparison

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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
Ranking in Access Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (7th)
Symantec VIP Access Manager
Ranking in Authentication Systems
16th
Ranking in Access Management
30th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.7%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec VIP Access Manager is 2.1%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.7%
Symantec VIP Access Manager2.1%
Other94.2%
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.
Berk Onur - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Consultant at Cyberwise
With its mobile application, this tool offers a convenient and user-friendly experience to its users
To improve the tool, I think that the solution should consider integrations with other cybersecurity and IT technologies, such as Privileged Access Management and Site Integration. Additionally, the implementation of second-factor authentication via Symantec VIP Access Manager, CyberArk, and Delinea, among other technologies, could be best for the product. While the existing technology is okay, improving the integration capabilities for Symantec VIP Access Manager would benefit the product. I would like to see the solution meet the integration needs at our company. While many cybersecurity solutions can function independently, they often lack integration with our systems due to missed integration points. Improving the solution's integration feature would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco Duo scales very well with the growing needs of my company; during COVID, when we had a higher number of users, there were no problems at all."
"Cisco Duo is quick to deploy and easy to start."
"It was a simple way of providing two-factor authentication for remote access when we hit the COVID pandemic. It was very easy and quick to get it going."
"The ease of deploying Cisco Duo Security and onboarding has greatly benefited our customers."
"Duo is a cloud-based product and it is a good product to maintain the security for the VPN."
"The two-factor authentication is valuable because that is the use case for which we are using it."
"Duo Security has helped remediate threats more quickly and offers security end to end."
"Regarding stability and reliability of Cisco Duo, I would say it is 99.9% reliable and stable."
"Pricing was about 25% of the old solution, saving us about $500,000 over three years for 10,000 users."
"The VPN we are using is good and working quite well."
"It is easy to use."
"The main benefit of Symantec VIP is that it provides strong authentication while keeping it as a very user friendly experience."
"Mostly from a product expert's point of view, it provides solutions for my clients."
"Other than it provides us with remote access, so it's fairly easy to install, fairly easy to set up, and provides us the ability to get into our corporate environment."
"It offers more platform support, like Apple, Android, and Microsoft."
"The ease of integrating into an existing authentication system."
 

Cons

"They can make authentication easier. It should be done in a shorter time. Sometimes, it can take a bit more time to get the answer on your phone. You have to wait a bit longer to get the SMS code and other things. There can be some internet or connection issues. They should make it faster because sometimes, it's urgent, and you need to access something as soon as possible."
"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."
"Duo Security could improve by being more compatible with other vendors."
"I would love to see improvements around Identity and Access Management with Cisco Duo, specifically how we can use that as a central source of truth for all of our IAM tools, including Active Directory."
"The pain point for us at one point was the Duo Authentication Proxy since we're on-premises and not in the cloud. We had to have a proxy machine that's in our DMZ to talk to Duo for us. The configuration of that was a little complicated."
"It is not easy to maintain network connectivity."
"I have not seen ROI with Cisco Duo; probably the opposite, because it impedes productivity time to be able to get into the system. You have to authenticate and do your regular login and your Active Directory logins."
"The only time I really had some negative feedback for them was about the UI of their mobile app, but they improved it in the last version. It is good on the functionality side, but their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. If you are on a monthly term or a yearly contract, you basically pay the same price, and that is very unusual. Normally, there is a discount when someone signs up for the 12-month system."
"The gateway server is a RADIUS server, but it lacks the functionality of returning RADIUS attributes other than those that are required for the gateway to authenticate the users."
"At times, the relay server could not contact Symantec; it would fail open and allow access without a passcode."
"It gets out of sync with Active Directory or whatever it might be, whatever the authentication piece is on Active Directory, and they just reset it on the backend. I never have to contact the vendor."
"It is challenging to use when installing a new version."
"Every time that I have a new phone or computer, it takes a little longer to deploy it."
"Technical support is one of the worst problems."
"The User Store synchronization part needs to improve. Also, the logs, reports, and dashboard can be improved."
"In the next release, I would like the ability to work offline with remote access."
 

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."
"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."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"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."
"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
"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."
"I can say that the solution is worth the money."
"There is a one-time setup fee plus the licenses are provided as per the number of users. For SMS and voice calls, the costs are separate."
"Licensing and pricing seems very fair."
"There are additional costs for maintenance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise82
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
 

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?
Regarding the pricing, what actually happened was that we got the product purchased through our HQ, so the costing aspect and all those things sit with our HQ. I do not have much information in ter...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
I do not have a straight answer for how Cisco Duo can be improved at this time. With the implementation that we are going through right now, I was asking a question about how we can use Cisco Duo o...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Duo Security
Symantec VIP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Maine Medical Center, Aria S.p.A
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Symantec VIP Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.