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Cisco Duo vs UserLock 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 Authentication Systems
2nd
Ranking in Access Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), ZTNA as a Service (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (2nd)
UserLock
Ranking in Authentication Systems
21st
Ranking in Access Management
24th
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 7.2%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UserLock is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Duo7.2%
UserLock1.2%
Other91.6%
Authentication Systems
 

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.
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

"The feature that my organization started using more recently in Cisco Duo is offline authentication."
"What I most appreciate about Cisco Duo is the ease of use."
"Cisco Secure solutions are great for detecting and remediating threats across our infrastructure from end to end. The integration of Talos in SecureX is great. Everything is clear in one dashboard. You have a dashboard there, your dashboard, and now you can have one look in your dashboard and see everything. It's on one pane of glass."
"It is very easy. Having just wrapped up my tenure at Cisco, it was used day in and day out for security. It was always easy to log in and not have to worry about logging in multiple times."
"The feature of Cisco Duo that I value the most is that it's easy to use; it monitors all our devices to ensure everything is updated before we're given access to those applications."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features are two-factor authentication and real-time logon monitoring."
"We mainly implemented UserLock for multi-factor authentication, but the user login insights are also nice."
 

Cons

"I would appreciate seeing Cisco Duo improved with a tighter integration with Active Directory to secure not just Remote Desktop to a server, but all the remote levels of connection that you can make to a server."
"I would like to see some features simplified, such as securing, configuring, and implementing Microsoft Remote Desktop. Other than that, the solution was rock solid throughout my time administering it."
"The dashboard needs to be improved."
"The only challenge is finding the right person sometimes. From what I've seen, being a named account is a big deal."
"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."
"Duo has some issues that we're trying to work through. For example, if I install it on a WordPress site and another admin needs to log in, they can't because Duo hasn't been set up for them. It doesn't appear that I can add permissions on a user-by-user basis. It's not obvious."
"Cisco Duo is stable, but occasionally there are emails about incidents that affect some services temporarily."
"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."
"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

"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"Duo Security is free."
"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."
"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."
"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."
"With regard to pricing, for a small business buying a one off, it's pretty expensive. If it's an enterprise that has thousands of employees, however, it's really nothing to protect your data because if your network goes down or it's breached, you're losing millions of dollars every minute. When it comes to a large enterprise, it's priced where it should be because you're talking business to business. You're not talking business to consumer."
"You will be hard-pressed to find better pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
19%
University
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise36
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 pricing, setup, costs, and licensing is that I do not get into pricing much; I leave it to procurement, but I think it's very competitive. We use other Cisco products such as fir...
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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: October 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.