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Cisco Duo vs Thales Authenticators comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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
61
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
Thales Authenticators
Ranking in Authentication Systems
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 9.7%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Thales Authenticators is 2.3%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

RyanDeppe - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps reduce the risk of a breach and is easy to deploy and onboard
For our customers, Duo Security is a significant advantage because it provides them with a straightforward method to implement MFA across their entire environment. Moreover, once we delve into the more advanced features of Duo Security, it enables us as a partner to engage in ongoing discussions regarding security strategies with our customers. Initially, we may only introduce them to MFA during the onboarding process. However, as their security strategy evolves, we can leverage Duo to perform additional tasks such as risk-based assessments and deployments, thereby assisting in the development of their security measures. Duo Security helps secure our infrastructure. It serves as our gateway layer of protection, allowing us to understand who is logging in and why. We conduct risk-based assessments on each user to determine whether their actions are appropriate or not. Duo Security is not a comprehensive security solution, but it is undoubtedly a crucial component, a critical layer of security. This aspect resonates with our customers consistently. Their ability to reduce the risk of a breach is of utmost importance. It serves as the primary line of defense. Currently, credential gathering and leaks are widespread in the market. By implementing an MFA solution like Duo Security, we can effectively prevent these issues. When we put a stop to credential harvesting, it becomes much harder for attackers to infiltrate and navigate our network. Therefore, Duo Security acts as an excellent first line of defense. User authentication and device verification are the methods through which we envision our customers navigating in order to prevent identity-based attacks. Initially, when we employ Duo Security, it is a straightforward implementation of multi-factor authentication. As we progress, we enhance security measures by incorporating device risk assessment and potentially even regional assessment. This includes considerations such as whether the login is being attempted from a specific IP address. These gradual enhancements contribute to the establishment of an additional layer of protection. Thus, it is not necessary to implement a completely disruptive strategy right from the start. Instead, it is possible to gradually adopt and integrate this approach, following a crawl, walk, or run methodology. The Duo Security self-service portal helps free up our customers' IT staff time, allowing them to focus on other projects. As a Cisco partner, we have received feedback from our customers that the portal is highly interactive, enabling them to easily navigate and resolve issues. After setting up their Duo environment, we rarely receive callbacks for assistance, as the portal is intuitive and empowers users to handle everything they need on their own. The appealing aspect of Duo Security is its ability to establish trust for every access request, regardless of its origin. It is a cloud-based solution with excellent API integrations. It doesn't matter where or how a user logs in; Duo will be there to protect the user, whether it's through MFA, risk assessment, or similar methods. It is extremely beneficial to our customers that Duo Security considers all resources as external. Our customers frequently inquire about a zero-trust model, and this is a key component of it. Unfortunately, I would love to say that there is a simple solution for zero trust where we can just deploy this solution and be done with it. But that's not the case. It requires a layered approach, and that's what we convey to our customers. Duo Security is definitely a part of that. Duo Security has helped improve our customers' cybersecurity resilience. Internally, it protects our users from accessing sales operations-based environments. Additionally, our customers use it regularly to protect business-critical applications.
Gustavo Merighi - PeerSpot reviewer
Has an easy-to-use management interface and a straightforward initial setup process
Our primary use cases include multifactor authentication for VPN connections and access to security tools like jump servers and firewalls. We also use it to enhance security measures in an enterprise environment The most valuable feature is the YAML 2.0 integration. It has an easy-to-use…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ease of deploying Cisco Duo Security and onboarding has greatly benefited our customers."
"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."
"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."
"Cisco is the perfect product for our current size, and I don't think we'll have problems with scalability as we grow."
"Multifactor authentication is the most valuable feature."
"The anti-phishing feature is the most valuable."
"Duo Security gives us an additional layer of security that would give us added confidence that our network will be less likely to get hacked, compromised, or otherwise."
"The single pane of glass management is very important and it is part of the reason we went with Duo. Anything we can do to save time for our administrators, help desk staff, and engineers, is valuable to us."
"The technical support services are good."
"The most valuable feature of SafeNet Authentication Manager is authentication."
"Scalable and stable."
"I like how the solution allows me to support different types of hardware tokens and integrate with OTP."
"One valuable feature is Thales' ability to provide off-site tokens."
"We use this solution to log into virtual machines like VMware and VMware Horizon."
 

Cons

"There was an issue related to integration with third parties."
"The only time I really had some negative feedback for them was about the UI of their mobile app, but they improved it in the last version. It is good on the functionality side, but their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. If you are on a monthly term or a yearly contract, you basically pay the same price, and that is very unusual. Normally, there is a discount when someone signs up for the 12-month system."
"The pain point for us at one point was the Duo Authentication Proxy since we're on-premises and not in the cloud. We had to have a proxy machine that's in our DMZ to talk to Duo for us. The configuration of that was a little complicated."
"For the back-end, there could be a few more security features applied."
"The product price needs improvement."
"We have users who move throughout the world, and their levels of connectivity change. It can be a challenge, if someone is in Bahrain, to authenticate via Duo."
"Integration between Duo Security and FTDs needs improvement. Integrating Next Generation Firewall safety with Duo Security currently requires a proxy agent between Active Directory and the appliance. It's an additional factor that we need to think about. It would be great to have direct integration with FTD so that we don't have to worry about middleware products. For the rest of the Cisco Secure solutions, the APIs need improvement."
"Certain customers can not use this product because it is cloud-based."
"The solution should allow for support of multi-tenant architecture."
"The stability could improve."
"We faced issues due to slow ticket responses, which improved over time."
"Lacks integration with other platforms."
"The product could be improved by adding more features for sending tokens via SMS or phone calls."
"The problem with SafeNet is that it's not integrated with Microsoft 365."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With regard to pricing, for a small business buying a one off, it's pretty expensive. If it's an enterprise that has thousands of employees, however, it's really nothing to protect your data because if your network goes down or it's breached, you're losing millions of dollars every minute. When it comes to a large enterprise, it's priced where it should be because you're talking business to business. You're not talking business to consumer."
"Cisco's licensing is always a bit complicated to understand, but the price is fair. It could be more expensive than others, but the way they integrate everything, it has a fair price."
"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."
"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."
"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."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."
"Cisco has the most expensive products because market leaders tend to charge a lot."
"There is an annual licensing fee."
"Thales is more expensive than its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 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.
What needs improvement with Thales Authenticators?
Currently, the solution fulfills our requirements. We are very satisfied with its features, and do not have any specific ideas for improvement right now. Perhaps, in the future, three-factor authen...
What is your primary use case for Thales Authenticators?
Our employees, whether working on-site or remotely, use Thales Authenticators for two-factor authentication to log in to their laptops or PCs. This is our primary use case.
What advice do you have for others considering Thales Authenticators?
From our past years of experience, the solution is very smooth, and we have had a good experience with it. We would definitely recommend Thales to others for its reliability and features. I'd rate ...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
Gemalto Ezio, Ezio, Gemalto Authenticators, SafeNet Authentication Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Standard Chartered Bank (SCB)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Thales Authenticators and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.