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Cisco Duo vs Venafi comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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
7.9
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)
Venafi
Ranking in Authentication Systems
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 10.1%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Venafi is 0.9%, up from 0.8% 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.
Adam Goldstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Automates certificate management across platforms and has enhanced integration support
Venafi's automation capabilities were significant, as they allowed us to automate certificate rotation and deployment effectively. We integrated it with GlobalSign and aimed to automate DNS verification, although challenges remained. Venafi's platform-agnostic nature was beneficial for handling certificates across different systems like IIS, AWS, and Azure. It ensures centralized certificate management, which is crucial for compliance and maintaining best practices. It significantly improved our operational efficiency by automating certificate workflows. This reduced the number of certificates requiring manual management, freeing internal resources from deploying trivial certificates. While some complex certificates still needed manual intervention, automating simpler ones eliminated internal bottlenecks associated with tasks like uploading certificates to Imperva. By automating these processes, we reduced errors, streamlined workflows, and eliminated the need to repeatedly remember and execute complex procedures, ultimately increasing our overall operational efficiency. The automation capabilities are good; when properly configured, it performs as expected.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is easy to use."
"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 push notifications and the integrations they offer are valuable. Their mobile app is very useful. It is very easy to use."
"The app has greater stability than rival solutions such as Google Authenticator, and Duo Push authentication is a valuable feature."
"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."
"The administrator tool in the dashboard is the most valuable feature. It's really easy to quickly see if users are locked out from their device, firmware code, or just all the little dashboards and reports I can run to give the security for monthly reports. The dashboard's really good."
"All features of the solution are effective, particularly those involved in identifying vulnerabilities and updates."
"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."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is their certificate discovery."
"Venafi is super stable, and we experienced no issues with its stability."
"Venafi's technical support is impressively fast."
"Venafi's automation capabilities were significant, as they allowed us to automate certificate rotation and deployment effectively."
"We use Venafi for PKI certificates."
"The most valuable feature of Venafi is the automation that helps save time and reduce human error."
"Automating anything, whether on-prem or cloud, is possible."
 

Cons

"I would like to see some features simplified, such as securing, configuring, and implementing Microsoft Remote Desktop. Other than that, the solution was rock solid throughout my time administering it."
"The technical engineers in the first line of support should improve their knowledge."
"It could be a little bit more intuitive when it comes to the sign-up process. I know they send out an email, but sometimes our users get a little confused. It could be an end-user problem, but Cisco could work on that a little."
"While two-factor authentication with mobile devices provides a high level of security, it's still not foolproof, as someone could potentially steal your phone. It would be beneficial to have information about the authentication location."
"There is a little bit of apprehension for some users thinking, well, "How do I know this app is not collecting personal information from my personal device?""
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Currently lacks the capability to automatically download certificates in JKS."
"I would like to see included in the next release of Venafi integration with the cloud HSM's, Hardware Security Module. Additionally, I would say other cloud services, because it's not only cloud that's essential. If you have a customer that has a lot of their IT moved into cloud, integration with different cloud services is always an area to improve."
"Currently, specific processes require manual installations due to the lack of built-in integrations."
"Venafi excels in automating certificate rotation and deployment but could enhance its offering by improving support for hardware security modules like Fortanix and providing more advanced, out-of-the-box integrations with public certificate authorities for DNS re-verification."
"Venafi's overall installation could be made easier."
"Venafi excels in automating certificate rotation and deployment but could enhance its offering by improving support for hardware security modules like Fortanix and providing more advanced, out-of-the-box integrations with public certificate authorities for DNS re-verification."
"Venafi could enhance its offerings by providing more automation features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing costs."
"It was very reasonable."
"Overall, the pricing is fair. Customers can wrap it into their Enterprise Agreement, making it easier for them to solve their issues."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Its price is reasonable. It is not highly expensive."
"Venafi's pricing appears to be competitive within the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

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 Venafi?
We use Venafi for PKI certificates.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Venafi?
Venafi's pricing appears to be competitive within the market. After evaluating other vendors, we found that Venafi offers good value for the cost, and we are satisfied with their pricing structure.
What needs improvement with Venafi?
Venafi excels in automating certificate rotation and deployment but could enhance its offering by improving support for hardware security modules like Fortanix and providing more advanced, out-of-t...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Surescripts, CME Group, TD Bank Group, Aetna, MoneyGram, Zions Bancorp, Cisco
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Venafi and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.