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Defender by One Identity vs RSA Authentication Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 20, 2026

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Authentication Systems
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
176
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (5th), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (7th)
Defender by One Identity
Ranking in Authentication Systems
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
RSA Authentication Manager
Ranking in Authentication Systems
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.7%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Defender by One Identity is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Authentication Manager is 2.7%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.7%
Defender by One Identity1.7%
RSA Authentication Manager2.7%
Other91.9%
Authentication Systems
 

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.
Mahesh Malve - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Business Development Associate at DigitalTrack Solutions ind pvt ltd
Advanced analytics have strengthened privileged access security and reduced incident response time
While One Identity Defender is a strong solution overall, there are a few areas where I feel it could be improved. One area is the user interface and dashboard customization. Although it is functional, making it more modern and allowing deeper customization would improve the user experience, especially for quick monitoring. Another improvement could be in reporting flexibility. While it provides good reports, having more custom report building options and easier export features would be helpful for different compliance and manageability needs. From an integration perspective, while One Identity Defender works well with core systems, having more out-of-the-box integrations with modern cloud services and SaaS platforms would reduce the need for custom configuration. In terms of support, the overall support is good, but faster response times for critical issues and more detailed troubleshooting documentation would help teams resolve problems more efficiently.
US
VP Business Development at SDVG
Enhancing security with seamless single sign-on and Microsoft integration
We use RSA Authentication Manager for web applications and internal applications. We have a number of applications connected to it, serving over thirty thousand clients. It is integrated into everything from our standard login to Windows in the morning, as well as our applications Due to its…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My total rating for Cisco Duo is ten out of ten."
"Everybody loves it. They feel a sense of security when they get that prompt to send them a text, or an email."
"Since we onboarded it, since we started using Cisco Duo, we have never had any operational glitch."
"Cisco Duo scales very well with the growing needs of my company; during COVID, when we had a higher number of users, there were no problems at all."
"The push notifications are quicker and easier than with other apps because of the convenience and reliability."
"The single pane of glass management is very important and it is part of the reason we went with Duo, and anything we can do to save time for our administrators, help desk staff, and engineers, is valuable to us."
"You can do online and offline authentication."
"It is a great system regarding multi-factor authentication, specifically after we did the integration with Active Directory, allowing us to manage the users who use the VPN, our main gateway for VPN Cisco ASA Secure, with full administration."
"One Identity Defender has positively impacted our organization by improving overall security through the addition of MFA, which reduces the risk of unauthorized access and makes user authentication more controlled and reliable."
"We find that the product scales very well."
"If you decide to activate this solution, your infrastructure will be centered around flexibility."
"It's very fast, and it's easy to use because it's integrated with Active Directory."
"One Identity Defender has good network protection."
"We have definitely seen a positive ROI from using One Identity Defender, as our security team now spends about twenty to thirty percent less time on manual log analytics and investigations because the system automatically highlights high-risk activities, and we did not need to increase team size despite growing infrastructure as the tool helps us handle more security events with the same team."
"I have found RSA Authentication Manager to be scalable."
"In 2005 we started with a managed authentication service for three small companies with each having approx. 250 users, and now we have 25 large enterprises/government departments with over 150,000 authenticating users and an uptime of nearly 100% over the last five years."
"The product has addressed our remote access security needs while making our work force mobile thus enhancing productivity and customer service initiatives."
"Easy setup, deployment, and integration in different infrastructures, including virtual ones."
"The most valuable feature is the provision part. The mapping and the logging is also very good. In addition, the troubleshooting, from a console point of view, is easy for administration and on the provisioning and logging part."
"It stands out as a comprehensive and adaptable solution that excels in both on-premises and cloud-based authentication, offers strong security with multi-layered authentication, and boasts a well-maintained product with reliable performance."
"It is a good solution for token identification."
"The single sign-on feature is the most important."
 

Cons

"Reducing or eliminating the "telephony credits" system used by Duo would be great."
"Its management interface should also be improved. They should also improve its update period."
"The only thing I would say that may lead to a more negative experience would be allowing the engineers to help the customers whether it is a twenty-minute call or a four-hour call."
"Cisco Duo can be improved with better ways to set users up. Currently, we might not be doing it perfectly as we're having them email in phone numbers to get them set up with Duo Mobile. I wish there was more of a self-service option than there is currently, at least to my understanding of Duo."
"Compared to other vendors, Cisco Duo is on the pricey end."
"We found it difficult to integrate it into our broader product family of Microsoft tools and other applications used across our organization."
"For upgrades, there should be a better notification of when they're coming out. We always have a testing phase, so we need to be ahead of it. It takes us longer before we can upgrade to the newest version."
"The pricing for Cisco Duo is kind of okay, but most of the time, your competitor is someone like Microsoft who gives it out for free with their offering, making it tough to argue with customers why they should spend additional dollars to also get Duo to improve their setup, but I think the pricing is fair."
"The login capabilities could be better."
"One Identity Defender is a strong product, but there are a few areas where it can be improved."
"We have some clients that are wanting to protect their Apache web servers with One Identity Defender but all the research I have done says cannot be done. It can only be oriented to an IIS server. One Identity Defender should have more integration with more types of web servers."
"Maybe it could provide support for more web applications. It seems more focused on IIS web applications."
"The only reason it is not a ten is because response time can sometimes be slower for complex or escalated cases."
"The reporting needs to be improved, and they should be delivered by email."
"We found technical support was not very responsive to our requests for assistance."
"There is room for improvement in the RSA support."
"We have encountered issue when trying to expand this particular solution for a large set of users across the country."
"We are seeing a lot of difficult issues in terms of RSA, especially the cloud-based two-factor authentication process."
"We are not planning on using the solution in the future."
"Enhancing the user interface and expanding their marketing efforts in regions like Nigeria and West Africa could be beneficial."
"Our major problem is the authentication via Microsoft, via Microsoft cloud systems. This is our major aim, to be a valued product for the future. The biggest problem is to work against cheap cloud systems. Cloud identification is our main problem at this time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
"Duo Security is free."
"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 product’s pricing is reasonable."
"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."
"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
"The solution is costly."
"The pricing is a little bit complicated because sometimes resellers are able to make prices that are too low. Our price, with a discount, is typically not as high as some of our competitors."
"As a new customer, the minimum cost would be four dollars, but you have room for negotiation, potentially bringing it down to as low as three dollars."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
21%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise93
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise7
 

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 Du...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
Regarding the pricing, what actually happened was that we got the product purchased through our HQ, so the costing as...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
I do not have a straight answer for how Cisco Duo can be improved at this time. With the implementation that we are g...
What needs improvement with One Identity Defender?
One Identity Defender is a strong product, but there are a few areas where it can be improved. First, the user interf...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Defender?
One Identity Defender strengthens identity and access security through MFA, helping us ensure that only authorized us...
What advice do you have for others considering One Identity Defender?
My advice for others looking into using One Identity Defender would be first to clearly define your use case, especia...
What needs improvement with RSA Authentication Manager?
RSA Authentication Manager is perfect. We do not see current missing products or enhancements yet emphasize the impor...
What is your primary use case for RSA Authentication Manager?
We use RSA Authentication Manager for web applications and internal applications. We have a number of applications co...
What advice do you have for others considering RSA Authentication Manager?
RSA Authentication Manager is the best available solution. However, for other companies, it might seem expensive. It&...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
ACE/Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Bakersfield Police Department, Village of Westmont, Illinois
Tiera, Fred Loya, BRE Leasing, ADP, BlueFort Security, New Hanover County
Find out what your peers are saying about Defender by One Identity vs. RSA Authentication Manager and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,714 professionals have used our research since 2012.