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Cisco Duo vs Thales Authenticators comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Authentication Systems
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th), 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 December 2024, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 11.8%, up from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Thales Authenticators is 2.6%, 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

"It's pretty easy for users to figure it out."
"Another feature is the single pane of glass management. That's important for analytics and also for troubleshooting. It means there's one place that you go to at least start the troubleshooting process."
"Regarding the valuable features, I would say that Duo Security is easy to use, has speed, and is dependable."
"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."
"Duo Security improved my organization by helping us secure all access points within the company infrastructure."
"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 valuable aspect is the authentication and the SSO."
"Scalable and stable."
"The technical support services are good."
"We use this solution to log into virtual machines like VMware and VMware Horizon."
"The most valuable feature of SafeNet Authentication Manager is authentication."
"One valuable feature is Thales' ability to provide off-site tokens."
"I like how the solution allows me to support different types of hardware tokens and integrate with OTP."
 

Cons

"They could just continue to add more integrations."
"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."
"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."
"Smart Licensing needs improvement. It's terrible. We have problems with it every year and we need to involve support to fix it."
"The only thing I can think of to improve for tech support is to have a dedicated engineer but then I would get an engineer that has priorities in one area or another and maybe not the scope I need."
"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."
"We found it difficult to integrate it into our broader product family of Microsoft tools and other applications used across our organization."
"I wish that the support would be a little bit more prompt and a little bit more flexible because there are certain things that they will do and certain things they won't do."
"The solution should allow for support of multi-tenant architecture."
"The problem with SafeNet is that it's not integrated with Microsoft 365."
"The stability could improve."
"The product could be improved by adding more features for sending tokens via SMS or phone calls."
"Lacks integration with other platforms."
"We faced issues due to slow ticket responses, which improved over time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
"It was very reasonable."
"From a business perspective, it is a little bit costly. The licensing is on a per-user 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."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."
"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."
"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."
"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%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
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?
I would rate the pricing of Cisco Duo as a seven on a scale of one to ten, which means it is quite expensive.
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: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.