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Cisco Duo vs Secret Double Octopus 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Authentication Systems
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (4th), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (2nd)
Secret Double Octopus
Ranking in Authentication Systems
26th
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Passwordless Authentication (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 8.1%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Secret Double Octopus is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Duo8.1%
Secret Double Octopus0.5%
Other91.4%
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Botts - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Gaurav Gaurav - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution with good capabilities across a wide range of platforms that comes with a useful mobile application, but upgrades cause issues
We have noticed that patches and upgrades cause issues with how the application functions, due to the lack of stability of the product. However, we would recommend the solution because it has good capabilities, across a wide range of platforms, and the mobile application allows for use via Bluetooth, so users don't have to be connected to the internet. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cisco Duo for us is the multi-factor authentication."
"My impression of Cisco's identity intelligence capability to detect and respond to identity-based risks effectively is that it's a great product."
"The integration with Azure Active Directory and the AWS cloud is amazing, as most products nowadays require the creation of a customized integration. With Duo Security, it was more like native integration, and it took me five minutes to register."
"The feature that my organization started using more recently in Cisco Duo is offline authentication."
"It has definitely reduced embedding. We found a lot of problems with attackers being able to compromise accounts. Now, when they try to access accounts, they are not able to do so because there is an added layer of protection. Once we know that a username and password are compromised, we just reset the password to protect the company."
"The single pane of glass management works very well. That feature is very important because we have a lot of admins who have to manage Duo, and it's much easier when it's a single pane of glass. That single pane is also great because it's easy to enroll new devices."
"You can do online and offline authentication."
"The most valuable feature is the ability for users to connect securely to the office using the VPN."
"This solution has a mobile application, which comes with multi-factor authentication; allowing for more flexible usage, without having to sacrifice system security."
 

Cons

"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."
"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. That's my only complaint."
"We use Yubikey for pushing it to the phones. Yubikeys can get expensive because people tend to lose those for some reason. Fifty dollars a device is pretty high."
"Regarding the stability and reliability of the Cisco Duo solution, we have experienced some outages over the last few years that are significant because people can't log in."
"Duo Security could improve by being more compatible with other vendors."
"The only challenge is finding the right person sometimes. From what I've seen, being a named account is a big deal."
"The technical engineers in the first line of support should improve their knowledge."
"Duo has some issues that we're trying to work through. For example, if I install it on a WordPress site and another admin needs to log in, they can't because Duo hasn't been set up for them. It doesn't appear that I can add permissions on a user-by-user basis. It's not obvious."
"The product suffers from frequent disturbances in service, that have impacted our end users when we deploy software updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been good, with no issues. I am pleased that the prices remained stable after Cisco acquired the solution."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"It's very simple. Its price is fair. We use the hardware tokens as well. You get what you pay for. In terms of licensing, Cisco has very complicated products, but Duo Security was surprisingly easy."
"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."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Hospitality Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise36
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 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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Also Known As

Duo Security
Octopus Authenticator
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
United Technologies (UTC), American Family Association, ASL Airlines France, BNP Paribas, A Fortune 50 Bank, Bingham County Idaho, Britannia Financial Services, Carolina Behavioral Health Alliance LLC, European Commission, County of Midland Michigan, JRM Construction Management, Greer Commission of Public Works, Poste Italiane, Kennedy Wilson Europe, Key Mechanical, Marker Therapeutics Inc, Mediawan, Ministero Dell'interno, FairPrice, NTUC Health, Mercatus, TBC, Techni-Photo, Tinsa Group, Yates Law, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Z-Medica Corporation, A Member of the 5 largest US law firms.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Authentication Systems. Updated: September 2025.
870,623 professionals have used our research since 2012.