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Cisco Duo vs Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) comparison

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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

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)
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)
Cisco Secure Client (includ...
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (3rd), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
 

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 Cisco Duo is 2.3%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is 3.5%, down from 3.6% 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
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.
Wouter Beer - PeerSpot reviewer
Generates revenue through service offering while needing additional safety features
The primary use case for Cisco Secure Client, including AnyConnect, is as a VPN for remote access I use AnyConnect because I have Cisco infrastructure. It utilizes certificates, which allows for automatic setup. The security features are beneficial, and the whole idea of the app is that it should…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"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."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"It's a lot easier for our end users to connect to our network. You don't have to type in a code. You get push notifications, that's probably the best thing about it. The fewer clicks they have to do to be online, the better it is. They can easily get into the network and do remote work."
"Duo Security provides a high level of certainty regarding the identity of the individual performing an action. Whether it's logging into a system, using VPN, or utilizing Autopay, establishing that trust is crucial. I can't imagine any security company, organization, or IT team that wouldn't prioritize having multifactor authentication enabled when accessing critical systems."
"They are users who, as mentioned before, utilize RDPAP and MDPAP. It includes functionalities related to finance, specifically in single sign-on."
"The multi-factor authentication process and the geo-locking features are great."
"Duo Security improved my organization by helping us secure all access points within the company infrastructure."
"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."
"The solution is easy to use."
"We get fewer threats to remediate due to the two-factor authentication, which does not allow as many threats through."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"This solution gives you double security because it uses both hard and soft tokens."
"The most valuable feature is the connection feature."
"The solution is very easy to use and set up."
"Cisco Technical Support is very good, very friendly, and helpful."
"The solution is very stable."
"You don't have to think about it very much. It just works."
"Advanced malware protection helps us to prevent any virus from contaminating computers. We also have DLP for prevention. And AnyConnect has a feature that lets us do some sandboxing to evaluate files that arrive from the outside. So before opening them, we can check them with the sandbox."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"I'm not a big fan of relicensing products every year or two years, but that's the model at the moment. I prefer to go back to licensing perpetually or permanent licensing."
"One area that might be improved is that setting up SMS texting is not as easy as using the app, even though it does support it."
"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."
"Smart Licensing needs improvement. It's terrible. We have problems with it every year and we need to involve support to fix it."
"We found it difficult to integrate it into our broader product family of Microsoft tools and other applications used across our organization."
"Duo Security could improve by being more compatible with other vendors."
"Most of my colleagues from other companies use the Microsoft MFA solution because it's included in Office 365. Few people are considering Cisco Duo. That's the primary problem in our area. It's a solution mostly adopted by Cisco users."
"Technical support could be improved. I don't think all support should have to go through an agreement."
"One improvement could be ensuring better backward compatibility."
"The setup is a bit difficult to handle on the server-side."
"I'm not noticing any missing features."
"I think that the addition of single sign-on functionality would be helpful."
"Sometimes if we're always having some network issues, or maybe the client is having some network issues, we might get disconnected."
"We were going to use the Cisco AnyConnect with hardware tokens. However, right now, it's very complicated in terms of delivering the hardware token to the customer. That's why we are looking for a software token right now."
"Complicated scenarios are difficult to deploy. On a scale from one to ten, with one being the most difficult, I'd give a rating of between two and three for the initial setup."
"If they could simplify connections via other machines, like Linux or Mac OS X, it would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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 have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."
"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."
"Duo Security's pricing is good, fair, and very comparable to today's market."
"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."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
"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 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."
"It costs around 80,000 Indian rupees for a hundred licenses, so approximately $1,020 USD."
"I would rate the pricing for the license of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client around four to five out of ten. It's not the cheapest option, but it's also not overly expensive."
"There is a license needed to use this solution. There are different licensing models available, such as a three-year license."
"We have yearly licensing and it's very affordable."
"The pricing depends on the requirement, so proper planning and an RF analysis help to properly size the solution and get the best pricing."
"It is not a free solution and the user needs to buy license."
"We are in the North African region, and Cisco products are expensive for us. On a scale from one to ten with one being very affordable and ten being expensive, I'd rate the price at eight."
"The solution is based on an annual licensing model and is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Educational Organization
48%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Government
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
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.
What do you like most about Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
The tool is user-friendly, robust and easy to use in any environment.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
I am not sure about the actual pricing as I work on the technical side. However, customers often complain about the p...
What needs improvement with Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
Cisco Secure Client is quite solid, but the license terms are complex and could be improved. The various licensing op...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Duo Security
Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client
 

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.
Information Not Available
MST, Molina Healthcare, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, Arup, New South Wales Rural FireService
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,849 professionals have used our research since 2012.