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Cisco Duo vs Thales SafeNet Trusted Access comparison

 

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 Single Sign-On (SSO)
5th
Ranking in Access Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
156
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (3rd)
Thales SafeNet Trusted Access
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
19th
Ranking in Access Management
25th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (25th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.2%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Thales SafeNet Trusted Access is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.2%
Thales SafeNet Trusted Access2.0%
Other94.8%
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.
GauravMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Information Technology at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simple to use, easy to set up, and performs well
I'm not saying that we want to switch the product, however, since the requirement has increased, we are looking at other options that may be better suited. The scalability may not there. We have a few specific use cases where we have to avoid the cloud. Especially in Europe, we're not allowed to carry their phone in factories. We need some sort of secure access solution. There's a dependency on Microsoft Azure. I am paying to SafeNet and in parallel, I also need to pay Microsoft to use the same service. That makes no sense, to pay double. If they could do something about it, that would be very good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I appreciate the most is that you can push a notification with your phone and log in to your computer."
"The best feature Cisco Duo offers is its simplicity."
"Examples of how these features have benefited my organization include that end users are happy and I am happy because I do not have to constantly monitor it every single day."
"My experience with Cisco Duo's strong security authentication system has been good; it is seamless and easy to integrate, and it is flexible."
"It's a great solution for securing access to the applications and network because we can integrate the solution with all types of applications."
"Duo Security improved my organization by helping us secure all access points within the company infrastructure."
"Cisco Duo has improved our operational efficiency and reduced costs in areas such as authentication, IT support, and security operations by enhancing our security workflows; pretty much everyone is using MFA at work, making it easy for us to see who is actually accessing our network and computers."
"The app has greater stability than rival solutions such as Google Authenticator, and Duo Push authentication is a valuable feature."
"Right now, we only have a small use case for the product, however, it has performed well."
"I recommend this solution because it protects information."
"The interface is easy to use."
"The solution is simple to use."
"The validation and integrity features of the endpoint are great."
 

Cons

"With Cisco Duo, you have to do that, and customers complain about that process. At some point, you need to be technically savvy to understand how to use Cisco Duo."
"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."
"Integration between Duo Security and FTDs needs improvement. Integrating Next Generation Firewall safety with Duo Security currently requires a proxy agent between Active Directory and the appliance. It's an additional factor that we need to think about. It would be great to have direct integration with FTD so that we don't have to worry about middleware products. For the rest of the Cisco Secure solutions, the APIs need improvement."
"One issue I see is when the device is offline."
"The technical engineers in the first line of support should improve their knowledge."
"Cisco Duo is not MSP ready by default."
"Areas that have room for improvement in Cisco Duo include pricing, as Cisco is quite expensive, and the fact that Cisco Duo relies heavily on external identity providers such as Active Directory or Entra ID and does not offer full identity lifecycle management on its own, which leads organizations to often pair Cisco Duo with another IAM solution for complete identity governance."
"Most of my colleagues from other companies use the Microsoft MFA solution because it's included in Office 365. Few people are considering Cisco Duo. That's the primary problem in our area. It's a solution mostly adopted by Cisco users."
"I'd like to see more networking features, such as the ability to integrate network monitoring solutions and authenticate the app users."
"The scalability may not be there."
"SafeNet's reporting and monitoring features could be improved."
"There's a dependency on Microsoft Azure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 was very reasonable."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"I only need the solution for IT staff, which makes it relatively cheap. If I deployed it for the whole company, it would be costly, so it depends on the number of users. Duo Security is affordable compared to other products in the segment."
"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."
"The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."
"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Duo has been great. We've been there for 10 years. While we haven't gone through the setup part for a while, licensing is straightforward and convenient for higher education because student populations are included. So, we don't have to pay extra for it. We just pay for our knowledge workers, which has been great, and the cost is reasonable."
"Their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing costs."
Information not available
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise78
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, the setup cost, and the licensing of Cisco Duo is that it is really inexpensive in the first place, but the value that I get in return is hard to beat, especially wh...
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
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
SafeNet Trusted Access, Gemalto SafeNet Trusted Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
IBM, Western Union, Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, Novartis, and AT&T.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Thales SafeNet Trusted Access and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.