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 #27. Cisco holds a 9.3% mindshare in AS, compared to RSA’s 0.6% 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

7,133 Views
5,778 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Read 6 RSA Adaptive Authentication reviews

362 Views
257 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Cisco Duo

RSA Adaptive Authentication

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo vs. RSA Adaptive Authentication

July 2025

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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

27th

Average Rating

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 9.3%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Adaptive Authentication is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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.

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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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Duo Security improved my organization by helping us secure all access points within the company infrastructure."

"It's a lot easier for our end users to connect to our network. You don't have to type in a code. You get push notifications, that's probably the best thing about it. The fewer clicks they have to do to be online, the better it is. They can easily get into the network and do remote work."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco Duo for us is the multi-factor authentication."

"The Verified Duo Push feature is valuable. It gives an extra level of security beyond just the regular push."

"Multifactor authentication is the most valuable feature."

"If you have to log in to something, you must go to Duo Security to confirm that you're who you are on your phone."

"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 ability for users to authenticate via phone, from any random phone number, has been very helpful for managing a distributed workforce. Using it across a distributed network for securing access to our applications is big for us."

More Cisco Duo pros

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

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

"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."

Cons

"We have a 24 hour timer for our Duo cookie and we would like to reduce this to a shorter time when using Duo."

"It is easy to use when logging in, but at times, there's a delay in getting the pop-up on a phone, requiring users to occasionally retry authentication depending on backend services."

"Reducing or eliminating the "telephony credits" system used by Duo would be great."

"Duo was clearly purchased, and Cisco has a lot of other panels for their Firepower products, et cetera. They need to continue bringing it, Umbrella, and the endpoint pieces even more together and make the integration a little more seamless among all of them."

"Certain customers can not use this product because it is cloud-based."

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

"Cisco Duo could be improved if there were a way to make two-factor authentication quicker."

"I would appreciate it if Duo Security could improve its integrations with Windows Hello."

More Cisco Duo cons

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

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

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

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

"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."

"It has taken years to implement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."

"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."

"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."

"Cisco has the most expensive products because market leaders tend to charge a lot."

"Their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing costs."

"It falls in line with everything else."

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

"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."

More Cisco Duo pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

44%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

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Comparisons

Microsoft Entra ID vs Cisco Duo

Compared 14% of the time

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Duo

Compared 14% of the time

Fortinet FortiToken vs Cisco Duo

Compared 12% of the time

Yubico YubiKey vs Cisco Duo

Compared 8% of the time

RSA SecurID vs Cisco Duo

Compared 4% of the time

More Cisco Duo Competitors

RSA Authentication Manager vs RSA Adaptive Authentication

Compared 100% of the time

More RSA Adaptive Authentication Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo

July 2025

Download Cisco Duo product report

Buyer's Guide

Authentication Systems

June 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

July 2025

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