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Cisco Duo vs WatchGuard AuthPoint MFA comparison

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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
160
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), Authentication Systems (2nd), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), AI Data Analysis (3rd)
WatchGuard AuthPoint MFA
Ranking in Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Authorization Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 15.5%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard AuthPoint MFA is 2.1%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo15.5%
WatchGuard AuthPoint MFA2.1%
Other82.4%
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.
MF
Senior IT Tech at PCSL
Strong security measures and easy initial setup
I did reach out to WatchGuard for some features I'd like to see. I have a security license where AuthPoint could be used as a secondary authenticator for Office 365 users. It would be great to leverage AuthPoint for external authentication for Office 365, especially since some users prefer familiar tools, even with Microsoft's recent 2FA rollout. Additionally, I'm currently testing WatchGuard EDR, and I'd love to see full visibility into the cybersecurity status of assets, including vulnerabilities.

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."
"All features of the solution are effective, particularly those involved in identifying vulnerabilities and updates."
"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."
"Cisco Duo is very user-friendly."
"I like the set time that users can log into devices during the day and how many times they can do so. I also like the ability to restrict the regions from which the user can get in. Users outside of our country or even the town cannot log in."
"Cisco Duo has improved my operational efficiency and reduced costs in areas such as authentication, IT support, and security operations significantly."
"What I appreciate most about Cisco Duo are the security features it brings to our network environment and machine access."
"I appreciate the secured push feature of Cisco Duo, which requires you to choose a number, because it enhances the security of your users, especially when combined with geolocation for a Verified Push, benefiting my company and our customers by making logins much more secure."
"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."
"The integrations are good."
"We use well-prepared templates to integrate AWS and Office 365 so it's very, very easy to implement for our needs."
"Personal notifications are very easy to use."
"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."
"It can be implemented as an app on the phone, rather than with a hardware token."
"The WatchGuard firewall includes many security features, such as UDP, block filters, web filtering, and GeoBlock."
 

Cons

"Removing the need for a password would be a positive change as well as the ability to cover all the different enterprise applications. They don't have coverage for everything."
"My experience with deploying Cisco Duo was a bit rough at first, but after we got it smoothed out, it has worked ever since."
"I think the prices of Cisco Duo are quite fair, but the main problem is that Microsoft Authenticator is built-in with M365, so everyone is switching to that and using it instead of Cisco Duo because it costs extra as a standalone product."
"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."
"I think Cisco Duo could improve the dashboard to make logging in and credential management more visible."
"The product price needs improvement."
"I cannot think of a specific feature that should be focused on for improvement, but perhaps addressing the trouble we have when people are changing phones would help."
"One area that might be improved is that setting up SMS texting is not as easy as using the app, even though it does support it."
"Locking could be enhanced to be GDPR compliant."
"The solution should implement a tagging process, which will provide an extra layer of security for the devices connected to the VPN."
"We would like the zero trust feature of this solution to be completed, with more details added and more laptop management capability."
"Documentation on cloud could be improved."
"My only concern is the segmentation of services, which I understand is common in SaaS."
"It's not so simple to configure."
"The product must enable administrators to restrict the privileges of remote users."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
"The pricing was a lot more than what we were paying for our previous solution."
"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."
"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
"It's a bit confusing because we're on a three-year plan with a certain number of licenses, and we've gone over that number. They told us that when we renew, they will add all these licenses. We've expanded quickly, so everyone's kind of scared because no one knows what the bill is with the long pricing cycle."
"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."
"The pricing, I believe, is around $3 a user a year. It is quite reasonable."
"We got the product at a low price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise79
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?
Regarding Cisco Duo's affordability for the Ukrainian market, I think it is affordable. It depends on an installation base. For a medium and mid-range market, I think it is a fully affordable price...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
Cisco Duo is a fully cloud-based solution. It would be beneficial if Cisco provided a fully on-premise solution. I have discussed this with the local Cisco office in Kyiv regarding any possibility ...
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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: September 2026.
914,805 professionals have used our research since 2012.