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Cisco Duo vs UserLock comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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 Authentication Systems
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
UserLock
Ranking in Authentication Systems
20th
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Access Management (25th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 9.7%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UserLock is 1.1%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

RyanDeppe - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps reduce the risk of a breach and is easy to deploy and onboard
For our customers, Duo Security is a significant advantage because it provides them with a straightforward method to implement MFA across their entire environment. Moreover, once we delve into the more advanced features of Duo Security, it enables us as a partner to engage in ongoing discussions regarding security strategies with our customers. Initially, we may only introduce them to MFA during the onboarding process. However, as their security strategy evolves, we can leverage Duo to perform additional tasks such as risk-based assessments and deployments, thereby assisting in the development of their security measures. Duo Security helps secure our infrastructure. It serves as our gateway layer of protection, allowing us to understand who is logging in and why. We conduct risk-based assessments on each user to determine whether their actions are appropriate or not. Duo Security is not a comprehensive security solution, but it is undoubtedly a crucial component, a critical layer of security. This aspect resonates with our customers consistently. Their ability to reduce the risk of a breach is of utmost importance. It serves as the primary line of defense. Currently, credential gathering and leaks are widespread in the market. By implementing an MFA solution like Duo Security, we can effectively prevent these issues. When we put a stop to credential harvesting, it becomes much harder for attackers to infiltrate and navigate our network. Therefore, Duo Security acts as an excellent first line of defense. User authentication and device verification are the methods through which we envision our customers navigating in order to prevent identity-based attacks. Initially, when we employ Duo Security, it is a straightforward implementation of multi-factor authentication. As we progress, we enhance security measures by incorporating device risk assessment and potentially even regional assessment. This includes considerations such as whether the login is being attempted from a specific IP address. These gradual enhancements contribute to the establishment of an additional layer of protection. Thus, it is not necessary to implement a completely disruptive strategy right from the start. Instead, it is possible to gradually adopt and integrate this approach, following a crawl, walk, or run methodology. The Duo Security self-service portal helps free up our customers' IT staff time, allowing them to focus on other projects. As a Cisco partner, we have received feedback from our customers that the portal is highly interactive, enabling them to easily navigate and resolve issues. After setting up their Duo environment, we rarely receive callbacks for assistance, as the portal is intuitive and empowers users to handle everything they need on their own. The appealing aspect of Duo Security is its ability to establish trust for every access request, regardless of its origin. It is a cloud-based solution with excellent API integrations. It doesn't matter where or how a user logs in; Duo will be there to protect the user, whether it's through MFA, risk assessment, or similar methods. It is extremely beneficial to our customers that Duo Security considers all resources as external. Our customers frequently inquire about a zero-trust model, and this is a key component of it. Unfortunately, I would love to say that there is a simple solution for zero trust where we can just deploy this solution and be done with it. But that's not the case. It requires a layered approach, and that's what we convey to our customers. Duo Security is definitely a part of that. Duo Security has helped improve our customers' cybersecurity resilience. Internally, it protects our users from accessing sales operations-based environments. Additionally, our customers use it regularly to protect business-critical applications.
Bill H. - PeerSpot reviewer
Affordable, easy to use, and integrates well with Active Directory
The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home. It’s not that I mind not having two factors, but I do get that question from time to time from some of our users who think it would be really useful. From what I’ve heard, they’re working on it and it should be coming in the next version so that’s great news.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For me and my customers, the best feature is that it's very easy to integrate with the existing infrastructure. It takes a few minutes to configure it."
"Duo Security gives us an additional layer of security that would give us added confidence that our network will be less likely to get hacked, compromised, or otherwise."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The two-factor login is great. I receive a message and just have to press okay."
"At the moment, the ease of use is what is the best feature for me. Once it has been set up and the security can hoc to my mobile device, it's very simple to use my single sign-on, get prompted for a Duo Security, push, go to my phone, accept the push, and I'm done. It's a very simple process."
"It's pretty easy for users to figure it out."
"Since Duo Security provides a single place to log in for our SaaS applications, we don't have to manage user accounts and remember passwords for each specific application."
"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."
"We mainly implemented UserLock for multi-factor authentication, but the user login insights are also nice."
"The most valuable features are two-factor authentication and real-time logon monitoring."
 

Cons

"We were considering purchasing other products, like AMP for Endpoints, and it was not properly integrated with the firewall function. It might be better now with SecureX."
"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."
"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."
"While two-factor authentication with mobile devices provides a high level of security, it's still not foolproof, as someone could potentially steal your phone. It would be beneficial to have information about the authentication location."
"The new smart license model doesn't always work. It's very complicated."
"We have a 24 hour timer for our Duo cookie and we would like to reduce this to a shorter time when using Duo."
"The product could be more intuitive on the app."
"More automation and device insights would be helpful in achieving a seamless single pane of glass. Having the additional capability to streamline processes would also make things better."
"I would like to see UserLock add the ability to automatically create a group policy in Active Directory. That might streamline the setup process."
"The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was very reasonable."
"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
"Duo Security is free."
"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 believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"It falls in line with everything else."
"You will be hard-pressed to find better pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
Construction 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.
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Barclays, US Department of Justice, National Bank of Kuwait, Turkish Aerospace, New York Albany School District, Regtransfers, University of Kent, Camden City School District, Oklahoma City Public Schools, Bank of Cyprus, Detran-PE: Pernambuco State Traffic Department
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. UserLock and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.