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Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs Cisco Duo comparison

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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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (10th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Akamai Enterprise Applicati...
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
20th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (18th), Access Management (22nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (26th)
Cisco Duo
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), Authentication Systems (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the ZTNA as a Service category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is 2.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Duo is 2.3%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA as a Service
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
Bill Lee - PeerSpot reviewer
Very scalable, convenient, and stable protection against attacks
Our company uses the solution as a cloud perimeter and VPN. We don't need to use on-premises devices to open firewalls to inbound or outbound traffic.  The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks.  The solution has two…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"The capability of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is what you're looking for, it's giving you the service that you're looking for. It's simple and doesn't use an agent. It uses LCSD responders, and they have a lot of services around the globe. That's the reason that we were very interested in using it because it has a lot of coverage. This is because it's under the GDS umbrella."
"Application Access's most valuable feature is the accessibility of enterprise tech protection."
"The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks."
"They are users who, as mentioned before, utilize RDPAP and MDPAP. It includes functionalities related to finance, specifically in single sign-on."
"Another feature is the single pane of glass management. That's important for analytics and also for troubleshooting. It means there's one place that you go to at least start the troubleshooting process."
"It is really scalable. It is easy once you get an application in. You can import users from Active Directory and enroll users really fast."
"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."
"Since Duo Security provides a single place to log in for our SaaS applications, we don't have to manage user accounts and remember passwords for each specific application."
"At the moment, the ease of use is what is the best feature for me. Once it has been set up and the security can hoc to my mobile device, it's very simple to use my single sign-on, get prompted for a Duo Security, push, go to my phone, accept the push, and I'm done. It's a very simple process."
"The most valuable features of Duo Security are visibility and OTP authentication. The OTP is very important because it is a self-enrollment feature, you are able to enroll users very quickly with a shorter time period."
"Duo Security improved my organization by helping us secure all access points within the company infrastructure."
 

Cons

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"The solution has two agents so should combine its enterprise application and security access into one agent."
"The technical enablement sessions are quite limited, and Akamai could help by providing more of them."
"We need another approach to bring the solution to the cloud. In addition to Access Management, we would like to see if we can jump into Directories. I think ADs are going to go away and everything is going to be cloud-based and minimize the use of ADs because of the cost and some other dependencies to the cloud. Every time you buy AD it is more hardware, and everything's changing to software. The network's changing, the applications are changing, and for IT it is hard to keep up with it."
"The only challenge is finding the right person sometimes. From what I've seen, being a named account is a big deal."
"Duo Security could improve by being more compatible with other vendors."
"Certain customers can not use this product because it is cloud-based."
"I'd like to see it integrated into other applications. I know there are some integrations, but I haven't been able to explore that any further."
"The new smart license model doesn't always work. It's very complicated."
"We have had instances where Duo Security stops working on a user's device, which we have fixed by uninstalling and then reinstalling it."
"I wouldn't mind seeing some options for remembering a device for a short period of time or a specific login, particularly for administrative engineering staff, as we may be logging in to four or five different services."
"From an administrative standpoint, I'd love to see it be a little better at remembering a device and location so that I don't have to continually authenticate. That's pretty much it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The license can be shared based on the number of active users."
"Licensing is based on user count."
"The price is great it is all-inclusive, they use an enterprise cost model. That's what we like compared to other users. This is one of the main attractions of Akamai Enterprise Application Access. It's already an enterprise cost model established with us for services."
"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."
"The pricing was a lot more than what we were paying for our previous solution."
"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."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"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 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."
"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have the same complaint about them that I have about other software companies. Sometimes when you call in support, ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and sta...
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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 do you like most about Duo Security?
They are users who, as mentioned before, utilize RDPAP and MDPAP. It includes functionalities related to finance, spe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
The setup cost is reasonable, estimated at around six euros per month.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Soha
Duo Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Bugcrowd, InPowered, Spirent Communications
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Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs. Cisco Duo and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,849 professionals have used our research since 2012.