Cisco Duo vs RSA Adaptive Authentication comparison

Cisco and RSA are both solutions in the Authentication Systems category. Cisco is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5, while RSA is ranked #26. Cisco holds a 8.5% mindshare in AS, compared to RSA’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of RSA users who would recommend it.

Cisco Duo

Read 74 Cisco Duo reviews

6,657 Views
5,259 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Read 6 RSA Adaptive Authentication reviews

458 Views
348 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Cisco Duo

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Cisco Duo and RSA Adaptive Authentication are two key products in the identity authentication market. Cisco Duo stands out with user satisfaction in pricing and support, while RSA Adaptive Authentication excels in features and is perceived as worth the investment.

What features are offered by Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo's valuable features include ease of integration, robust security measures, and straightforward deployment. RSA Adaptive Authentication offers comprehensive risk-based authentication, extensive analytics capabilities, and advanced threat identification and prevention. Users find RSA Adaptive Authentication's features more beneficial due to its advanced security functionalities.

What areas of improvement can be found in Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo users suggest enhancements in multi-device management, request more detailed reporting, and better scalability options. RSA Adaptive Authentication users highlight the need for a more intuitive setup process, improved customer support, and a more user-friendly interface. Overall, Cisco Duo's areas for improvement are less significant compared to RSA Adaptive Authentication's larger setup challenges.

How is the ease of deployment and customer service of Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo users appreciate its straightforward deployment and proactive customer service. In contrast, RSA Adaptive Authentication faces criticism for its complex deployment process and less responsive support. Cisco Duo is recognized for being easier to deploy and having superior customer service.

What setup costs and ROI can be seen with Cisco Duo in comparison to RSA Adaptive Authentication?

Cisco Duo offers competitive setup costs and a clear ROI. RSA Adaptive Authentication requires a higher initial investment but delivers strong long-term ROI through advanced security features. While Cisco Duo is more cost-effective initially, RSA Adaptive Authentication's ROI justifies its higher price.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,497 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (2nd)

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Ranking in Authentication Systems

26th

Average Rating

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 8.5%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Adaptive Authentication is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Authentication Systems Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco Duo	8.5%
RSA Adaptive Authentication	0.8%
Other	90.7%

Authentication Systems

Featured Reviews

Thomas Botts

Senior Network Engineer at a educational organization with 1-10 employees

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.

Read full review

Directorc4e7

Director of Cyber Security at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

We need better ease of use; the product is overly complicated

There are many use cases that we have defined based on our business needs Ingestion of logs and raising alert space on those logs are the most valuable features. The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated. It has taken years to implement. We used RSA…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature of Cisco Duo that I appreciate most is the push notifications. They are great."

"They are users who, as mentioned before, utilize RDPAP and MDPAP. It includes functionalities related to finance, specifically in single sign-on."

"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."

"As a former employee, I think it's top-notch when it comes to protecting internal and external threats and preventing unauthorized access to the network."

"Cisco Duo helps minimize the risk of attack vectors and prevents unauthorized access to our data since it's tied with multi-factor authentication, which helps block threats."

"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."

"The feature I like the most about Cisco Duo is that it allows us to authenticate users before they can connect to our network from outside of our company."

"Duo features benefit my company by making logins more secure and simpler. Everything is in one box, so we don't have multiple servers trying to do the same thing."

More Cisco Duo pros

"Ingestion of logs and raising alert space on those logs are the most valuable features."

"The capability to manage your business policy related to security when required without vendor involvement."

"Our customer are seeing value from the product, as they experience cost reductions. They can stop fraud from their customers, then their customers can have a better experience from their services."

"The most valuable feature is the stock tokens. That works the best for us."

"Risk Engine’s risk score, eFN, GeoIP, and device binding all coming together in the Policy Rules to decide when to escalate to MFA."

Cons

"Its documentation must be in French because we are a French-speaking country. They should also provide more training documentation. Its management interface should also be improved. They should also improve its update period. If I compare its update period with other products such as Palo Alto firewalls, this solution is really slow in updates."

"Duo Security could be improved with the addition of more applications."

"I wish that the support would be a little bit more prompt and a little bit more flexible because there are certain things that they will do and certain things they won't do."

"We found it difficult to integrate it into our broader product family of Microsoft tools and other applications used across our organization."

"When you come to the push in Duo Security, there are some integrations where you have to use the code instead of the push functionality."

"Improving Cisco Duo might involve alerting us about telephony credits when people receive texts. We hit zero at one point, and we were running around in circles without any idea until I discovered it."

"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."

"I have not seen ROI with Cisco Duo; probably the opposite, because it impedes productivity time to be able to get into the system. You have to authenticate and do your regular login and your Active Directory logins."

More Cisco Duo cons

"The product is basically unusable. We need better ease of use; it's overly complicated."

"It has taken years to implement."

"Better filters when searching for events. The current features for current filters when searching fraud events are not very comprehensive. You can only filter by certain fields in the transaction."

"RSA Adaptive Authentication lacks a mechanism to verify the identity of a new user in the Enrollment event workflow."

"I would like to see a more adaptive type of solution, something that we could use on our web pages..."

"Reporting modules is one of the major areas that can be improved further."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."

"I only need the solution for IT staff, which makes it relatively cheap. If I deployed it for the whole company, it would be costly, so it depends on the number of users. Duo Security is affordable compared to other products in the segment."

"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."

"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."

"The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."

"Duo Security's pricing is good, fair, and very comparable to today's market."

"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."

More Cisco Duo pricing and cost advice

"Customers need to deploy the solution in a very expensive infrastructure. RSA should should think about a less expensive infrastructure for customers because the solution costs around $100,000, and the infrastructure needed to support that solution may be even more expensive than that price."

"Keep the proxy service layer on premises. That consumes SaaS security services on the back-end."

"The pricing is $50 per head, yearly."

"You may need to opt for second best if funding is low and the number of users is huge. However, the pricing is able to be negotiated if your user figures are huge."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Authentication Systems solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

43%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	16
Large Enterprise	36

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Duo is honestly above my pay grade. I don't know any of that.

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Duo

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Cisco Duo

Compared 13% of the time

Fortinet FortiToken vs Cisco Duo

Compared 10% of the time

Yubico YubiKey vs Cisco Duo

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco Duo

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Duo Competitors

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 62% of the time

RSA Authentication Manager vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 38% of the time

More RSA Adaptive Authentication Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo

September 2025

Download Cisco Duo product report

Buyer's Guide

Authentication Systems

August 2025

Download RSA Adaptive Authentication product report

Also Known As

Duo Security

No data available

Overview

Cisco Duo is a cloud-based identity security tool offering easy and wide-ranging access protection for users and devices worldwide. It assures identity-first security with clear visibility across multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments.

Cisco Duo provides robust multi-factor authentication and seamless integration capabilities with existing infrastructures. Appreciated for its stability and speed, it supports distributed workforces by securing VPN access, corporate networks, and cloud services. Duo’s comprehensive identity ecosystem supports easy deployment and management through a single-pane-of-glass management interface. It seamlessly merges with popular platforms like Active Directory and Office 365 across diverse hardware.

What are Cisco Duo’s Essential Features?

Multi-Factor Authentication: Offers secure access with options like push notifications and hardware tokens.
Seamless Integration: Easily fits with existing systems and third-party applications.
User-Friendly Management: Provides centralized control with a single-pane-of-glass interface.
Wide Compatibility: Supports broad applications and devices, enhancing security management.
Stable and Fast: Reliable speed and intuitive interaction for users across platforms.

What Benefits and ROI Can Cisco Duo Users Expect?

Enhanced Security: Increases protection with versatile MFA options for critical resources.
Ease of Use: Simplifies deployment and management with intuitive interfaces.
Scalability: Adapts to growing needs with broad compatibility and integration support.
Support for Distributed Workforces: Ensures secure remote access for teams anywhere.

Cisco Duo finds extensive applications across education, finance, retail, and government sectors by fortifying network and application access security. Organizations leverage it for its MFA capabilities, integrating with ERP systems, ensuring protected connectivity with VPN and cloud-based services, crucial in maintaining secure and efficient operations.

Cisco

RSA Adaptive Authentication is a risk-based two-factor authentication solution providing cost-effective protection for an entire user base. Adaptive Authentication secures online portals, SSL VPNs, and web access management portals for different types of organizations in the healthcare, insurance, enterprise, government, financial services, and other industries. Based on the transparent two-factor authentication technology, Adaptive Authentication works behind the scenes to authenticate end users and transactions based on individual end user and device profiles. In addition, Adaptive Authentication uses the RSA Risk Engine to estimate the level of risk for the specific activity and uses information collected from the RSAeFraudNetwork (a cross-organization, cross-application, cross-border online fraud network) to identify fraudulent activities. The Policy Manager determines what actions must be performed, depending on the risk score and other parameters.

RSA

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ADP, Ameritas, Partners Healthcare

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication

September 2025

Free Report: Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication report.

See our list of best Authentication Systems vendors.

We monitor all Authentication Systems reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.