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Cisco Duo vs Thales Authenticators comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

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
6.3
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
Thales Authenticators
Ranking in Authentication Systems
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 10.3%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Thales Authenticators is 2.3%, up from 2.3% 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.
Gustavo Merighi - PeerSpot reviewer
Has an easy-to-use management interface and a straightforward initial setup process
Our primary use cases include multifactor authentication for VPN connections and access to security tools like jump servers and firewalls. We also use it to enhance security measures in an enterprise environment The most valuable feature is the YAML 2.0 integration. It has an easy-to-use…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Duo offers dual-factor authentication for our logins. I put in my credentials and hit go. Then I get an alert on my Apple watch, and I approve it. That part is just phenomenal."
"The most valuable feature of Duo Security is the ability for the user to easily approve access. The application prompts the user, and they can see the location and the IP address. This makes it easy for the user to approve it and go through the process of logging in to the VPN."
"The anti-phishing feature is the most valuable."
"The app has greater stability than rival solutions such as Google Authenticator, and Duo Push authentication is a valuable feature."
"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 get fewer threats to remediate due to the two-factor authentication, which does not allow as many threats through."
"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."
"Duo Security gives us an additional layer of security that would give us added confidence that our network will be less likely to get hacked, compromised, or otherwise."
"I like how the solution allows me to support different types of hardware tokens and integrate with OTP."
"We use this solution to log into virtual machines like VMware and VMware Horizon."
"One valuable feature is Thales' ability to provide off-site tokens."
"The most valuable feature of SafeNet Authentication Manager is authentication."
"Scalable and stable."
"The technical support services are good."
 

Cons

"Smart Licensing needs improvement. It's terrible. We have problems with it every year and we need to involve support to fix it."
"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."
"We have a 24 hour timer for our Duo cookie and we would like to reduce this to a shorter time when using Duo."
"Duo was clearly purchased, and Cisco has a lot of other panels for their Firepower products, et cetera. They need to continue bringing it, Umbrella, and the endpoint pieces even more together and make the integration a little more seamless among all of them."
"Technical support could be improved. I don't think all support should have to go through an agreement."
"Integration with a product such as Microsoft Sentinel would be great. As the product continually improves, I'm unsure if this feature is available."
"For upgrades, there should be a better notification of when they're coming out. We always have a testing phase, so we need to be ahead of it. It takes us longer before we can upgrade to the newest version."
"We use Yubikey for pushing it to the phones. Yubikeys can get expensive because people tend to lose those for some reason. Fifty dollars a device is pretty high."
"Lacks integration with other platforms."
"The solution should allow for support of multi-tenant architecture."
"The stability could improve."
"We faced issues due to slow ticket responses, which improved over time."
"The problem with SafeNet is that it's not integrated with Microsoft 365."
"The product could be improved by adding more features for sending tokens via SMS or phone calls."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco has the most expensive products because market leaders tend to charge a lot."
"The pricing was a lot more than what we were paying for our previous solution."
"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user basis."
"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."
"Its price is reasonable. It is not highly expensive."
"It has a fair pricing model. I know they have different tiers, but it would be nice to have different types of licenses for certain groups of users in our organization. That way, we wouldn't have to lump everybody into one group. That would be also one complaint."
"Our licensing fee is currently on an annual basis."
"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
"There is an annual licensing fee."
"Thales is more expensive than its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
25%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 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?
The setup cost is reasonable, estimated at around six euros per month.
What do you like most about Thales Authenticators?
We use this solution to log into virtual machines like VMware and VMware Horizon.
What needs improvement with Thales Authenticators?
Currently, the solution fulfills our requirements. We are very satisfied with its features, and do not have any specific ideas for improvement right now. Perhaps, in the future, three-factor authen...
What is your primary use case for Thales Authenticators?
Our employees, whether working on-site or remotely, use Thales Authenticators for two-factor authentication to log in to their laptops or PCs. This is our primary use case.
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
Gemalto Ezio, Ezio, Gemalto Authenticators, SafeNet Authentication Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Standard Chartered Bank (SCB)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Thales Authenticators and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.