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Cisco Duo vs Nok Nok Labs 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
7.0
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Access Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
Nok Nok Labs
Ranking in Authentication Systems
33rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 4.8%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nok Nok Labs is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo4.8%
Nok Nok Labs0.9%
Other94.3%
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Charles Slaustas - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
Supports seamless authentication for users across multiple organizations and personal portals
The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter. I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.
reviewer1217064 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head : Security Architecture at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Easy to use, reliable, and offers a straightforward setup
We are customers and end-users. We've dealt with the solution for a long time. We've seen how they developed as a startup, and how they've matured over time. They're actually quite advanced and they are sometimes cutting edge compared to other competitors. I'd recommend the solution. They do things very differently. They're very advanced and they're standards-based. They basically have got a very good vision in terms of how they do strong authentication. Other companies are actually following suit and following what they've done to support standards. They're quite advanced and simple to use, with a good support model. They have the edge compared to other solution providers. In general, I would rate the solution at an eight 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

"Cisco Duo has made us more secure. We've managed to stop some threats with it and keep our users and devices safe."
"The experience of deploying Cisco Duo is great; it is fast and not too complex in my opinion, as you can integrate basically anything into Duo, so I would say the experience is overall very great as an administrator."
"The app has greater stability than rival solutions such as Google Authenticator, and Duo Push authentication is a valuable feature."
"It was a simple way of providing two-factor authentication for remote access when we hit the COVID pandemic. It was very easy and quick to get it going."
"If you have to log in to something, you must go to Duo Security to confirm that you're who you are on your phone."
"The most appealing feature of Cisco Duo is the phone notification system that simply pops up on your phone."
"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 most appealing feature of Cisco Duo is the phone notification system that simply pops up on your phone."
"The technical support is quite good."
 

Cons

"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."
"Areas that have room for improvement in Cisco Duo include pricing, as Cisco is quite expensive, and the fact that Cisco Duo relies heavily on external identity providers such as Active Directory or Entra ID and does not offer full identity lifecycle management on its own, which leads organizations to often pair Cisco Duo with another IAM solution for complete identity governance."
"One downside of Cisco Duo is the expense, as there are clients that can afford only the basic package, which does not include Geo-fencing, leaving them unable to pay for the more expensive level, which I do not feel justifies the double price of that upper tier version."
"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."
"My experience with Cisco Duo's strong security authentication system is that sometimes there are difficulties, and sometimes users just won't be able to log in. We have to reset their password so they can use Duo."
"When you come to the push in Duo Security, there are some integrations where you have to use the code instead of the push functionality."
"To improve Cisco Duo, the biggest consideration is the licensing standpoint; the most common issue I've found is customers not setting up the Active Directory sync properly, leading to inflated licensing usage when they try to delete inactive users that are still being charged."
"Cisco Duo can be improved with better ways to set users up. Currently, we might not be doing it perfectly as we're having them email in phone numbers to get them set up with Duo Mobile."
"There's nothing wrong with the solution that we can see. However, maybe they could improve slightly by incorporating decentralized identity blockchain models into their solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It falls in line with everything else."
"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."
"It is affordable for what's coming to the table with it, but in this day and age, the cost is looked at under a microscope, and companies need to very finely define what is needed versus what is critical. In some cases, it might not be cost-effective for a company to have it. In a lot of other cases, it is the cost of doing business."
"During testing we are allowed a certain number of licenses for free."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise54
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
Compared to other vendors, Cisco Duo is on the pricey end. However, the other vendors do not have the wide range of features that Cisco Duo offers.
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
The primary issue is adoption. When I used to work for Deloitte, I did consulting and advisory for at least 95 of the 100 Fortune 100 companies. The number of enterprises using Cisco Duo was consid...
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Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
FIDO Alliance
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Authentication Systems. Updated: February 2026.
884,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.