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Cisco Duo vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 23, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Authentication Systems (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
141
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 4.9%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 22.4%, up from 16.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

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.
Bill Masci - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps across a distributed network, giving you a central way of authenticating everybody
A lot of people tell you the hardware requirements for ISE are pretty substantial. If you're running a virtual environment, you're going to be dedicating quite a bit of resources to an ISE VM. That is something that could be worked on. The upgrade process is not very simple. It's pretty time-consuming. If you follow it step by step you're probably going to have a good time, but there are still a lot of things that could be a lot more user-friendly from an administrator's perspective. [They could be] easing a lot of the issues that people have. Instead of just saying the best practice is to migrate to new nodes [what would be helpful] would be to make that upgrade process easier. The UI is a lot nicer in 3.0. It's pretty slow, but for the most part, it's easy to find what you're looking for, especially things like RADIUS live logs, TACACS live logs. From a troubleshooting perspective, it's really nice finding stuff. For setting up policies, from that perspective, it could be a little bit better looking.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 multi-factor authentication process and the geo-locking features are great."
"It provides single-pane-of-glass management, which is pretty easy and straightforward. Because we manage multiple access tiers, it allows us to essentially manage everything from one viewpoint and not have many viewpoints for the same product. This is important because it is a time and resource saver. It also saves us money."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the ability for users to connect securely to the office using the VPN."
"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."
"Cisco ISE provides authentication for various applications. It can integrate with other applications to manage access, including Privileged Access Management for those applications. For a comprehensive environment, Cisco ISE should be able to integrate and provide asset management for an IT organization or any organization."
"There are a lot of integrations available with multiple vendors. This has made the solution easier to work with."
"We have seen ROI. It has done its job. It has protected us when we needed it to."
"In terms of features, I think they've done a lot of improvement on the graphical user interface — it looks really good right now."
"Member Access Control and the ability to integrate all Cisco wireless, Cisco networking, switches, routers, and firewalls."
"So far, we have had no issues with the stability."
"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."
"Improves switch account management."
 

Cons

"Removing the need for a password would be a positive change as well as the ability to cover all the different enterprise applications. They don't have coverage for everything."
"There is a little bit of apprehension for some users thinking, well, "How do I know this app is not collecting personal information from my personal device?""
"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."
"Smart Licensing needs improvement. It's terrible. We have problems with it every year and we need to involve support to fix it."
"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 product price needs improvement."
"It already integrates with lots of products, but it can integrate with more products. There should be easy integration with Cisco products because sometimes, it can be quite complicated."
"They can make authentication easier. It should be done in a shorter time. Sometimes, it can take a bit more time to get the answer on your phone. You have to wait a bit longer to get the SMS code and other things. There can be some internet or connection issues. They should make it faster because sometimes, it's urgent, and you need to access something as soon as possible."
"ISE is a little clunky. The front-end feels like it is from the 1980s."
"The solution could be more secure."
"Some of the reporting could be improved."
"If you have someone taking care of it, it can be quite easy to manage the solution. Otherwise, if you don't look after it and take care of it day-to-day, then it will become more complex to run."
"The user interface could be improved to make it more user-friendly."
"An issue with the product is it tends to have a lot of bugs whenever they release a new release."
"The interface is a little bit complex."
"The web UI should be made similar to the one in DNAC."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Duo Security is free."
"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."
"Duo Security's pricing is good, fair, and very comparable to today's market."
"Its price is reasonable. It is not highly expensive."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"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."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"The recent changes in the licensing model have caused some issues with the team."
"It is fair."
"If you're not going through an agreement, it's very expensive."
"Licensing has got much simpler since Cisco moved to the DNA model because we just have the three tiers, but it could always stand to be improved upon."
"The Essentials licensing is reasonable, but I would like the Premier version to be perpetual instead of a subscription."
"The price for Cisco ISE is high."
"In general, licensing can be quite complex with Cisco products. It would be nice if it was a bit more intuitive and had fewer "gotchas" in there."
"I believe I have paid around $1,000 in licensing fees. The license is annual."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
25%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

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...
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?
I would rate the pricing of Cisco Duo as a seven on a scale of one to ten, which means it is quite expensive.
Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?
OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?
Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
Cisco ISE
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.