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Cisco Duo vs WatchGuard AuthPoint MFA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
156
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Authentication Systems (2nd), Access Management (4th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), AI Data Analysis (3rd)
WatchGuard AuthPoint MFA
Ranking in Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Authorization Software (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 15.4%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard AuthPoint MFA is 1.9%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo15.4%
WatchGuard AuthPoint MFA1.9%
Other82.7%
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
 

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.
reviewer2245134 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Includes many security features and provides push notification feature
Technical support needs more people who have good technical skills and knowledge instead of just sharing documentation. We can refer to the documentation from our end. It will be easy for us to troubleshoot if they have someone with knowledge of how these boxes work. We contact technical support when we can't find the issue after referring to the documentation. So, when they offer us documentation, it makes no sense. We need someone with that knowledge level to understand the issue and at least recommend what needs to be done. Documentation sharing is something I can agree with. However, they share the document for any issue and ask us to refer to it. Having a TAC in place doesn't make sense if they don't want to resolve something in real time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco Duo has definitely improved my operational efficiency and reduced costs in areas like authentication and IT support, as evidenced by a reduction in security tickets since we don't see too many password change requests or forgotten password calls anymore."
"Cisco Duo has improved my operational efficiency and reduced costs in areas such as authentication, IT support, and security operations."
"Cisco Duo has benefited our company overall by giving us the ability to have multi-factor authentication."
"The stability and good performance of the MFA are notable since it responds within seconds, and perhaps the algorithm is good when compared to other providers' MFA algorithms."
"The two-factor authentication is valuable because that is the use case for which we are using it."
"In the world of network security, it is outstanding and very strong."
"The authentication process is very smooth and secure."
"The features I value most about Cisco Duo are the push notification and the ability to select how I want to authenticate, and I primarily use the push method."
"The approvals feature of this solution is very good; it is operated by just one button, and can be controlled from a mobile device if needed."
"Personal notifications are very easy to use."
"We use well-prepared templates to integrate AWS and Office 365 so it's very, very easy to implement for our needs."
"It can be implemented as an app on the phone, rather than with a hardware token."
"WatchGuard AuthPoint is the multifactor authentication solution for our VPN and is our multifactor authentication piece to connect to our VPN back into our network."
"The integrations are good."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The token-based two-factor verification (2FA) for user logins is valuable. It's the primary reason we use AuthPoint, and I find it very effective."
 

Cons

"Often, people do not receive expiration messages, and sometimes, for security reasons, accounts get disabled without notifying the end user, so they mistakenly think something has gone wrong when it really just needs to be re-enabled on the external system."
"For upgrades, there should be a better notification of when they're coming out. We always have a testing phase, so we need to be ahead of it. It takes us longer before we can upgrade to the newest version."
"There is always room for improvement."
"I'm not a big fan of relicensing products every year or two years, but that's the model at the moment. I prefer to go back to licensing perpetually or permanent licensing."
"The only issue I encountered was related to the expiration of Duo Unix versions below 2.0.3 on February 3rd."
"I think Cisco Duo can be improved by integrating it more with developer tools; there is not a lot in terms of developer tooling with respect to authenticating to command line toolsets."
"I evaluate the stability and reliability of the solution as somewhat tricky. Cisco Duo Access Gateway is mostly VM-based, and while I'm not sure whether there is an on-premises hardware-based solution, having this VM-based solution can be buggy."
"Cisco Duo is a modern product that does not support older applications, lacking backward compatibility. It should work on supporting legacy applications and legacy approaches."
"The product must enable administrators to restrict the privileges of remote users."
"My only concern is the segmentation of services, which I understand is common in SaaS."
"Locking could be enhanced to be GDPR compliant."
"It's not so simple to configure."
"We would like the zero trust feature of this solution to be completed, with more details added and more laptop management capability."
"It has been really great. We don't have any complaints about it at all. We've only had one or two very minor glitches, and they were just in passing."
"The solution should implement a tagging process, which will provide an extra layer of security for the devices connected to the VPN."
"Documentation on cloud could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."
"Its price is reasonable. It is not highly expensive."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"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."
"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."
"It is affordable for what's coming to the table with it, but in this day and age, the cost is looked at under a microscope, and companies need to very finely define what is needed versus what is critical. In some cases, it might not be cost-effective for a company to have it. In a lot of other cases, it is the cost of doing business."
"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."
"We got the product at a low price."
"The pricing, I believe, is around $3 a user a year. It is quite reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise78
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Large Enterprise2
 

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.
What needs improvement with WatchGuard AuthPoint?
It's so simple to configure. We have integration with the WatchGuard firewall.
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
AuthPoint
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Ellips, Mednet, Diecutstickers.com, Fletchers Solicitors
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. WatchGuard AuthPoint MFA and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.