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Cisco Duo vs Thales SafeNet Trusted Access comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (2nd)
Thales SafeNet Trusted Access
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
20th
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) (26th), Access Management (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 5.9%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Thales SafeNet Trusted Access is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Botts - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing security policies effectively with seamless authentication
The feature of Cisco Duo that I prefer the most is the policies, being able to control what we need to within the policies. You can get pretty granular. There isn't a lot of training that goes on in school districts. Email is an easy way where many people give out their credentials, so the level of protection is something that we definitely need in a school district. Cisco Duo's strong security authentication system has been easy when logging in, although the teachers don't appreciate it as much. We have it configured so users essentially just hit accept. If it sees any sort of built-in risk, then it steps up authentication. It's pretty easy. I appreciate it. I've encountered advantages with Cisco Duo in that it has stopped significant pushback from teachers. It has prevented credential sharing and unauthorized access. We've seen a huge decrease since we've rolled it out across the entire district.
GauravMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"Duo has allowed us to add an additional layer of security to our organization and to establish trust for every access request and secures our environment."
"We like the different ways that it allows you to push notifications to people. It can do text, a phone call, and email. We liked the versatility for all of our different end-users, regardless of their level of understanding of the technology."
"The flexibility is the most valuable feature. We use it for the app on the phone. When we're at different locations, the phone is usually there, so we can use that. It has just been a very flexible option."
"The feature I like the most about Cisco Duo is that it allows us to authenticate users before they can connect to our network from outside of our company."
"The most appealing feature of Cisco Duo is the phone notification system that simply pops up on your phone."
"It has continuously evolved by introducing new solutions and products to address emerging security threats in our industry, demonstrating its commitment to staying ahead of evolving security challenges."
"I lead an IT organization that has a significant amount of technical debt, and we're not in a zero-trust architecture yet. I'm pushing in that direction. Duo helps me considerably with my identity in an environment where I don't have zero trust. It's helping me bridge the gap until I can build a zero trust architecture."
"The feature of Cisco Duo that I prefer the most is the policies, being able to control what we need to within the policies."
"The solution is simple to use."
"The validation and integrity features of the endpoint are great."
"The interface is easy to use."
 

Cons

"There is a little bit of apprehension for some users thinking, well, "How do I know this app is not collecting personal information from my personal device?""
"There is always room for improvement."
"Certain customers can not use this product because it is cloud-based."
"It could be a little bit more intuitive when it comes to the sign-up process. I know they send out an email, but sometimes our users get a little confused. It could be an end-user problem, but Cisco could work on that a little."
"Regarding the stability and reliability of the Cisco Duo solution, we have experienced some outages over the last few years that are significant because people can't log in."
"An enhancement they might make is if they can log it to Splunk since they're big into Splunk. Instead of me having to go into that portal to look at things when someone is trying to log in and they forgot their password, I can look in and tell them they forgot their password or didn't respond to the prompt."
"I would appreciate it if Duo Security could improve its integrations with Windows Hello."
"I'd like to see it integrated into other applications. I know there are some integrations, but I haven't been able to explore that any further."
"Lacks the ability to integrate network monitoring solutions and authenticate the app users."
"There's a dependency on Microsoft Azure."
"SafeNet's reporting and monitoring features could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"Our licensing fee is currently on an annual basis."
"The pricing was a lot more than what we were paying for our previous solution."
"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."
"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."
"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
"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
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
10%
Performing Arts
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 do you like most about Duo Security?
They are users who, as mentioned before, utilize RDPAP and MDPAP. It includes functionalities related to finance, specifically in single sign-on.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Duo is honestly above my pay grade. I don't know any of that.
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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: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.