9STAR Elastic SSO vs. WatchGuard AuthPoint

We use multiple authenticators at my company. We use WatchGuard AuthPoint just for our VPN for security purposes. The app works very well and over the past year we've only had a handful of issues with the authentication service, and these were resolved relatively quickly. We do have to remind people to enable push notifications from the app, or have the app open when they need to use it to authenticate, otherwise they won't get the push to approve. The biggest issue I've found is that people will forget to do this and then say that the VPN isn't working - the VPN is working, it's just that they didn't get/approve the push from AuthPoint in time.

Incentivized

• Works well with the free Authpoint client and the OpenVPN clinet.
• Token management is simple and hosted completely in the cloud to reduce overall complexity
• Setup was simple and and staighforward
• Suppports several authentication methods we have used both RADIUS and SAML effectively, but ADFS, IDP, RDWeb, and RESTful API, and other custom apps are supported.
• Geofencing for RDP has been very useful as it is independant of our firewall geofencing. This is quite useful for organizations like us who do not Geofence at at the firewall level so as to provide global access to resources on the DMZ.

Incentivized

• Email support is SLOW unless I want to allow a stranger to access my production firewall. That is never allowed here, so our hands are tied in terms of being able to get support in less than 48 hours.
• Again, support takes far too long because you refuse to employ any staff that works in US time zones during normal business hours.
• There has to be another option besides: 1) you take full control of my systems or 2) I wait on SLOW email support that isn't that great.

Incentivized

Today to ensure our ISO 27001 certification it is important that we maintain this solution. Today it is part of the way any employee within the organization works, we no longer have any other way of working and it is the simplest way to ensure that access to the workstation is done with MFA.

Incentivized

After initial setup, it practically runs itself. Onboarding new users is fast and easy as it should be. The AuthPoint mobile app is small and simple to use. The only reason I do not give it a 10 is that I frequently get complaints from end users that the AuthPoint app is "constantly downloading". In fact, it's not downloading anything and that what the users are seeing in the app is a timer for the 6-digit code that changes every minute.

Incentivized

Has rarely been unable to use; if that were the case, it was operator error

Incentivized

No apparent problem besides a couple of times that systems weren't working

Incentivized

WatchGuard support is always quick and reliable. They have urgency levels that you are able to select when creating your support ticket, and they respond in accordance to the severity that you have set. I have never had an issue with getting someone on the phone in the same business day, even for very low priority issues.

Incentivized

It was an Onsite demo at the ditributor with the benefits of Watchguard Authpoint. Was very nice to see the abilities of the product. This Demo was a few years back, since then Authpoint changed allot. It is very nice for partners that you can get this demo without any aditional cost.

Incentivized

We use the online training for all our employees. There are both sales and technical trainings available and there even is a technical certification. You can use this for the Watchguard Partner Program which can give you aditional benefits. Every now and then you have a webinar that discusses multiple Watchguard products.

Incentivized

the first time it takes more effort. It is helpful to already understand how each authentication type works. Then it's much easier to understand the MFA solution that you implement. It is useful to check the release notes from time to time and update the key parts of the Watchguard Authpoint. Authpoint Gateway, Logon App, RDWeb... Also, it's useful to set up notifications when something goes wrong or sometimes check the statistics of how many requests are being approved/denied, etc.

Incentivized

I would slot Authpoint (as a product) as better than ESET but not Duo. ESET has the same limitations as Watchguard in the OTP support. It also is an on-prem installed console rather than a cloud, which increases cost and maintenance requirements. The duo now supports standard OTP for admin accounts, so it can be managed by a team. Duo support however leaves a lot to be desired and gives Watchguard the edge

Incentivized

We are a medium-sized company. We don't need rapid scaling.

Incentivized

• We currently have 300 users on Authpoint, and most of them use insecure passwords. Authpoint gives us peace of mind that we don't have to police individual employee passwords.
• In line with the comment above, with so many people in our organization using insecure passwords, I'm sure that Authpoint has already saved us from many potential security breaches.
• Security breaches can cost a lot of money. Preventing them saves the company money and helps to achieve our bottom line.

Incentivized