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Cisco Duo vs Microsoft Entra ID vs RSA Authentication Manager 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 9.8%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 16.2%, down from 22.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RSA Authentication Manager is 1.8%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems
 

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.
Aaron Liang - PeerSpot reviewer
Has significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment
Microsoft Entra ID has helped by simplifying our management of permissions for APIs. We are not directly exposing credentials, as we use tokens instead. It has made management easier and more secure, especially in a multi-user environment. The implementation of Microsoft Entra ID significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment, primarily through the widespread use of single-sign-on. Managing API permissions became much easier, as application registration often involves calling an API to utilize services without directly exposing credentials, relying instead on token-based authentication. This streamlined approach benefits end-users by simplifying access while remaining transparent to them. Ultimately, my role focuses on ensuring a smooth and user-friendly experience, even if the underlying technology remains unseen by the end-users. Our company strongly emphasizes passwordless authentication, primarily through device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator. While administrators with high-privileged accounts utilize YubiKeys and passwords for tasks like accessing Microsoft Graph, we are actively transitioning all other users towards passwordless methods such as Windows Hello biometrics. This approach streamlines authentication and enhances security. Though initial deployment in 2022 presented challenges due to hardware limitations and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology has significantly improved and provides a simple and effective user experience.
Akinwale Sekiteri - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly effective and versatile solution that excels in terms of security, integration, scalability, and customer support
I highly recommend it because when you compare RSA with other products, it has consistently stood out. In the past, one area where people encountered challenges was in terms of price flexibility, but it significantly improved. You can now negotiate, discuss terms, and work with it to achieve a pricing arrangement that suits your needs, and if they recognize you as a loyal customer, they are more than willing to accommodate your requirements and reach mutually agreeable terms. Overall, I would rate it around nine out of ten when considering factors like durability, data performance, scalability, integration, and security, and excels in these areas.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The app has greater stability than rival solutions such as Google Authenticator, and Duo Push authentication is a valuable feature."
"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."
"It's simple. It's reliable. I haven't had any issues with it."
"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."
"It's pretty easy for users to figure it out."
"The ability for users to authenticate via phone, from any random phone number, has been very helpful for managing a distributed workforce. Using it across a distributed network for securing access to our applications is big for us."
"The most valuable aspect is the authentication and the SSO."
"The anti-phishing feature is the most valuable."
"The performance is good."
"The most valuable features of Azure ID are the single sign-on and OpenID Connect authentication."
"The most valuable feature for us is the B2C functionality of Microsoft Entra ID, which is essential due to our need for external and internal users to log into our system."
"The identity and access management piece is probably the most valuable to us. Since its implementation, synchronizing the identities from on-premise to Entra ID has had a positive impact. This allows us to grant access to applications based on those users and the groups they belong to."
"Overall, I think the support and the pictorial format of this web portal are very good."
"The single sign-on is very convenient for us."
"Every feature in Microsoft Entra ID plays a crucial role in overall security."
"The technical support is pretty good."
"It is a stable solution. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten."
"RSA Authentication Manager is a robust solution that provides comprehensive protection for both on-premise and cloud-based applications."
"The most valuable feature is the SecurID."
"I have found RSA Authentication Manager to be scalable."
"It is a good solution for token identification."
"RSA Authentication Manager is the best available solution."
"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."
"The single sign-on feature is the most important."
 

Cons

"They could just continue to add more integrations."
"We had some trouble with the password reset function."
"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 dashboard needs to be improved."
"The new smart license model doesn't always work. It's very complicated."
"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."
"Its documentation must be in French because we are a French-speaking country. They should also provide more training documentation. Its management interface should also be improved. They should also improve its update period. If I compare its update period with other products such as Palo Alto firewalls, this solution is really slow in updates."
"The only challenge is finding the right person sometimes. From what I've seen, being a named account is a big deal."
"Rule management and permissions need improvements."
"I had some issues with the Azure Active Directory on Windows XP. However, it worked well on Windows 7."
"Our users sometimes experience issues from having multiple Microsoft accounts, which can cause some confusion and hassle."
"There is a concept of cross-tenant trust relationships, which I believe Microsoft is actively pursuing. That is something which in the coming days and years to come by will be very key to the success of Azure Active Directory, because many organizations are going into mergers and acquisitions or spinning off new companies. They will still have to access the old tenant information because of multiple legal reasons, compliance reasons, and all those things. So, there should be some level of tenant-level trust functionality, where you can bring people from other tenants to access some part of your tenant application. So, that is an area which is growing. I believe Microsoft is actively pursuing this, and it will be an interesting piece."
"Azure AD needs to be more in sync. The synchronization can be time-consuming."
"A couple of years ago, I experienced some difficulty in implementing the solutions, the services of Azure AD. In one instance, I was not able to configure Azure AD for a registration. This was two or three years ago. However, currently, the documentation is very clear and there are no loopholes or anything that could hinder even a simple IT administrator to implement these services."
"Microsoft should work on enhancing its machine-learning algorithm to prevent unnecessary lockouts of users."
"They have had a few outages, so stability is a little bit of an issue. It is global. That is the thing. I know some of the other competitors are regionalized ID platforms, but Entra ID is global, so when something goes wrong, it is a problem because it underpins everything, whether you are logging in to M365 or you have single sign-on to Azure, Autopilot, Intune, Exchange mailbox or another application. If there is a problem with Entra ID, all of that falls apart, so its great strength and weakness is the global single tenant for it. Stability is a key area for me. Otherwise, it is generally pretty good."
"The product's capabilities to protect cloud environments need improvement."
"We have encountered issue when trying to expand this particular solution for a large set of users across the country."
"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."
"We are not planning on using the solution in the future."
"We found technical support was not very responsive to our requests for assistance."
"RSA Authentication Manager is perfect. We do not see current missing products or enhancements yet emphasize the importance of a continuous development roadmap."
"There is room for improvement in the RSA support."
"Perhaps parts of the the user interface should become more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"Cisco has the most expensive products because market leaders tend to charge a lot."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"Its price is reasonable. It is not highly expensive."
"Our licensing fee is currently on an annual basis."
"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."
"The pricing was a lot more than what we were paying for our previous solution."
"The basic tier of Azure Active Directory is free, so many users use the service for free. For a small company having the security and compliance that Azure offers is a great benefit. For small companies that are using the basic services, not having to pay for Azure Active Directory is the main asset because they can manage their users and have authentications tools and security."
"If you're on Azure, it can be free or it's incorporated, at no extra cost, or it can become extremely complicated."
"MFA and P2 licenses for two Azures for fully-enabled scenarios and features cost a lot of money. This is where Okta is trying to get the prices down."
"We got a good deal. If you get rid of all the products providing features that Azure Suite can provide, then it makes sense cost-wise."
"Microsoft Azure AD has P1 or P2 licensing options, and it depends on the customer's needs. To use Conditional Access, you need to have the P1 license, and to use the PIN features, you need the P2 license."
"I'm not sure about the specific costs or how they're calculated, but essentially, the costs go up based on the level of security that is required by the organization."
"We are currently on the education plan, so the price is slightly better than the development plan."
"It can be a bit expensive for organizations, but they do have different pricing models. Their free tier can be used on a personal level, but for an organization, the licenses might be a bit expensive. In general, the licenses can become cheaper, which will make it accessible for more people."
"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."
"The solution is costly."
"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
Computer Software Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 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 Azure Active Directory?
It is very simple. The Active Directory functions are very easy for us. Its integration with anything is very easy. W...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
Microsoft Entra ID is reportedly quite expensive for each user regarding security features. The renewal cost is parti...
What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?
There should be guidance on features, especially security features, in Entra ID and whether they are sufficient on th...
What do you like most about RSA Authentication Manager?
It stands out as a comprehensive and adaptable solution that excels in both on-premises and cloud-based authenticatio...
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...
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
ACE/Server
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
Tiera, Fred Loya, BRE Leasing, ADP, BlueFort Security, New Hanover County
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Authentication Systems. Updated: April 2025.
849,210 professionals have used our research since 2012.