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Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs Okta Workforce Identity 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Cisco Secure Client offers seamless, user-friendly connectivity, simplifying remote work despite unclear direct ROI.
Sentiment score
7.2
Okta Workforce Identity offers high ROI through enhanced security, reduced IT burdens, automation, and improved scalability and reliability.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Users find Cisco support knowledgeable and effective, despite occasional access difficulties, relying often on internal IT for Secure Client.
Sentiment score
7.4
Okta Workforce Identity offers responsive customer service, though delays occur; many benefit from fast, knowledgeable support and web resources.
Cisco offers very high-quality customer service.
Cisco technical support is difficult, and it requires lots of contracts.
Over the years, there's been a decline in the quality, mainly in areas such as the experience level of support engineers and the time taken to address and escalate issues.
They are very supportive; they just open a ticket, and they support us very professionally.
We had an issue with the Okta Workforce Identity dashboard once in 2023 when we had an outage, but it recovered in a few minutes.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Secure Client is scalable and effective for thousands of users, with flexible licensing for diverse environments and remote work.
Sentiment score
7.6
Okta Workforce Identity is highly scalable, supporting growth without performance issues, making it ideal for medium to large enterprises.
A smaller firewall can handle fewer sessions, while a larger one can handle tens of thousands of sessions.
The scalability of Cisco Secure Client depends on the hardware I choose.
Regarding scalability, Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) rates as excellent because we can scale out by simply buying more licenses from the vendor.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Secure Client is highly stable and reliable, with user satisfaction and minimal technical issues reported, scoring 8-10 regularly.
Sentiment score
8.1
Okta Workforce Identity is praised for its stability and reliability, with users noting minimal issues and quick recovery from outages.
I would rate the stability ten out of ten.
The stability is really good, and I would rate it up to nine.
Regarding the performance of Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect), I have not seen any issues because performance-wise it functions properly.
Okta Workforce Identity is a stable product.
 

Room For Improvement

Users desire improvements in Cisco Secure Client's interface, ease of use, connectivity, security, updates, and integration with systems.
Okta Workforce Identity needs UI improvements, better integration, enhanced support, and more features for effective user experience.
I am using Intune for deployments, and it's not easy to create an automated deployment where users do not need to register server addresses.
Vendors offer more features, such as a kill switch.
Cisco's security portfolio, including Secure Client and the firewalls, is falling behind.
It could improve in the governance part, particularly regarding better role management and workflow, as I feel it is tedious on Okta.
Okta should have at least a local peering partner for countries that align with or comply with GDPR, so there are no compliance or audit questions.
I believe that if we integrate the workflows section into the main Okta Workforce Identity dashboard, it can be very useful.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Client pricing is reasonable with term-based licensing, but some users find it costly compared to free competitors.
Okta Workforce Identity is costly but valued by larger enterprises for its comprehensive features and straightforward setup.
Palo Alto and Fortinet provide free VPN connections, but Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) requires a license purchase.
I perceive the pricing to be a seven, however, I have perpetual licenses.
The pricing seems to align equally with other competitors like Palo Alto during a competitive situation.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Client provides seamless, secure VPN access with user-friendly setup, cross-platform support, and integration with enterprise software.
Okta Workforce Identity enhances security and efficiency through centralized management, Single Sign-On, automation, and seamless integration with applications.
Beneficial for businesses needing secure access outside the office.
Additionally, it gives the user flexibility of working from anywhere, which is a major feature we are looking at.
Cisco Secure Client's AnyConnect VPN's reliability has been absolutely wonderful, as well as the ability to connect from any network, regardless of location.
For the end user, it is beneficial as they do not have to remember a password or keep the password on a post-it for different applications; they just authenticate once to access several services and service providers.
You can only log in if you have the access, which protects the applications by avoiding cross-site scripting.
Okta enables multi-factor authentication, which enhances security, especially for SaaS applications.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Client (includ...
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (1st), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (5th)
Okta Workforce Identity
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), Authentication Systems (6th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (6th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (3rd), Access Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the ZTNA as a Service category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is 3.6%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Workforce Identity is 1.8%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA as a Service
 

Featured Reviews

Wouter Beer - PeerSpot reviewer
Generates revenue through service offering while needing additional safety features
The primary use case for Cisco Secure Client, including AnyConnect, is as a VPN for remote access I use AnyConnect because I have Cisco infrastructure. It utilizes certificates, which allows for automatic setup. The security features are beneficial, and the whole idea of the app is that it should…
Tor Nordhagen - PeerSpot reviewer
Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced
The drawback of this solution is that in our shops, many staff members sometimes have to be borrowed from one shop to another and the solution does not really support having multiple roles. The user experience we would like to have when a person works in shop A which pays their salary is that they should have access to pretty much everything. Maybe you have somebody who is a manager in that shop A, he should be able to order new wear, he should be able to change the pricing, he should be able to empty the cash registry, and ship it to the bank. But when for instance, in COVID, people had to fill in for people in shops where a lot of people were sick, then they had to actually use user accounts of people that work in shop B. If you were employed in shop A, you could not work in shop B without borrowing somebody else's user ID and password. Which is really bad. We haven't been able to work around that and Okta Workforce Identity does not have a solution for it. We are now piloting their identity governance solution. Obviously, it's easy to give somebody access, give them an account, and give them roles, but it's hard to maintain that. For example, if you moved from, say working in a shop to working in a warehouse. But why do you still have all this shop access? The solution has until now not had anything to really support the process of taking away access. But now we are in a better release program of Okta's identity governance solution. Although it's very basic, the solution has started on a journey, but identity governance is something that Okta Workforce Identity really needs to improve. The ability or the options in the solution for changing the look and feel are not good enough because in our partner portal, essentially what they have is an ugly admin interface. The admin interface is good enough for us technical people because that's all we need. We work with the product and we're able to see the data but when it comes to presenting the service portal, Okta Workforce Identity does not have any capabilities really for making it look pretty. To add branding and different graphical user interface elements than Okta basic for essentially delegated admin for the business-to-business portal is horrifying because you're essentially using the tech admin. The only option we had and used, was to take the tech admin console and strip it. so that a vendor that has some goods that are sold in the shops, when they want to add a user on their side, say a driver or a packer on their side who should know how much they've packed in a truck to come to our warehouse, then the user interface that this vendor is using, these functional people will then have to use an extremely basic user interface.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
34%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
The tool is user-friendly, robust and easy to use in any environment.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is somewhat expensive compared to others such as Fortinet or Palo Alto, which provide free VPN when the firewall is purchased. Palo Alto and Fortinet prov...
What needs improvement with Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
At times there is confusion regarding when to keep the proxy on or off, a problem faced by some users.
What do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Areas for improvement with Okta Workforce Identity would be in the governance place; for me, it is light. Okta is mostly focused on execution and runtime, which means maintaining authentication and...
 

Also Known As

Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MST, Molina Healthcare, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, Arup, New South Wales Rural FireService
FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs. Okta Workforce Identity and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.