AWS Control Tower vs. Cisco Duo

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AWS Control Tower
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
The vendor presents AWS Control Tower as the easiest way to set up and govern a new, secure multi-account AWS environment. With AWS Control Tower, builders can provision new AWS accounts in a few clicks, while knowing new accounts conform to company-wide policies.N/A
Cisco Duo
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Duo is a two-factor authentication system (2FA), acquired by Cisco in October 2018. It provides single sign-on (SSO) and endpoint visibility, as well as access controls and policy controlled adaptive authentication.
$3
per month per user
Pricing
AWS Control TowerCisco Duo
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Duo Essentials
$3
per month per user
Duo Advantage
$6
per month per user
Duo Premier
$9
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AWS Control TowerCisco Duo
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
AWS Control TowerCisco Duo
Small Businesses
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud
Score 8.2 out of 10
WatchGuard AuthPoint
WatchGuard AuthPoint
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
WatchGuard AuthPoint
WatchGuard AuthPoint
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
Microsoft Entra ID
Microsoft Entra ID
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AWS Control TowerCisco Duo
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(4 ratings)
9.6
(135 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(10 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.5
(76 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(9 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(91 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(10 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(9 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(4 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(3 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
AWS Control TowerCisco Duo
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
We were wanting to prove the concept of a low touch process for quickly spinning up boilerplate AWS environments. We were able to get started quickly and to ensure that the AWS Well-Architected Framework principles were followed - at least upfront - however, we found that for our use case and expertise level it ultimately wasn't a fit. We have the skills on our team to manage more of this on our own. My recommendation would be contingent on what skills are already available on your team: if you can "do it yourself" you might as well so that you don't pay for resources you don't need and you have finer grain control over what's created.
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Cisco
Cisco Duo is extremely well-suited for someone wanting to add MFA to an on-premise Active Directory environment. Some of the other vendors in this space do provide this feature, but they do not natively support it. One of the top competitors in this space requires signing up with another third-party service to make this integration possible. Less moving parts for something as crucial as this is a huge benefit and having only one vendor to point fingers at makes troubleshooting much simpler.
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Pros
Amazon AWS
  • Easily create new AWS accounts.
  • Easily secure and manage AWS accounts.
  • Landing zone with SSO is a huge win for larger teams.
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Cisco
  • Speed - it's fast with almost no delay between triggering the MFA request and receiving the notification on an iPhone
  • Security - in addition to the added MFA layer, a simple, 4-digit passcode can be added to the authentication request
  • Ease of use - it doesn't scare users. It's simple to install, configure, and use.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • The AWS SSO GUI is not very intuitive and determining how to apply policies to users without creating redundant logins has been a challenge.
  • The default guardrails do not fully encompass all the security checks that we needed.
  • There does not appear to be any way to control roles at the IAM level from the control tower account through the GUI.
  • Some features on AWS accounts still require logging into the individual account with the root user and cannot be done from AWS Control Tower.
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Cisco
  • If you need to integrate some legacy applications to Cisco Secure Access by Duo, it's not easy.
  • If you want to have more detailed information and reports, you need to pay more for the licensing. The basic option is not enough.
  • A constraint could be that each employee has to install it on their personal smartphone, which some don't like. But, there is an alternative using SMS, although sometimes it takes too long to receive the message.
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Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Cisco
There are a lot of competing solutions on the market; however, Duo "just works", and there is little to no learning curve for the new members to be acclimated to it. As long as that continues I see it as the preferred option moving forward
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Usability
Amazon AWS
There is no way to easily close an AWS account whether it was created manually or via the AWS Control Tower. It takes too many steps to close it vs to provision a new AWS account
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Cisco
La interfaz es intuitiva y fácil de navegar, lo que permite a los usuarios administrar sus dispositivos y acceder a las políticas sin problemas. La integración con las aplicaciones SSO y SaaS facilita aún más el proceso de acceso, mejorando la experiencia del usuario.
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Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Cisco
In the last 5+ years we've been using Duo, there may have been 1 outage that impacted us. We do receive periodic notifications of issues but, for the most part, they impact carriers or functionality that we either don't use, or do not care about.
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Performance
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Cisco
We do not see any degradation of performance of the protected applications. There are occasional lags in receiving the push but no show stooppers.
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Support Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Since it’s a reputable company, I have received technical support when needed and I trust that if anything else happens I can contact them with any issues. I haven’t experienced bad customer service and I totally feel supported while using this authentication method. No complains so far and the high rating!
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In-Person Training
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Cisco
There was no in person training but checking the box was the only way I could complete all of the questions.
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Online Training
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Cisco
This was not organized training but the videos that Duo provides to teach you how to install a particular integration are top notch.
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Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Implementation was straight forward and you can isolate different scenarios in order to test new application setup or add to an existing setup. Gui interface is pretty easy to understand and follow. I had no experience with Duo and still manage to easily set up new policies and rules.
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Using AWS Systems Manager and other slightly lower level components has been helpful for us to manage parts of our AWS presence at a more granular level than AWS Control Tower was designed for. It's not at all an apples-to-apples comparison as they solve different use cases, but for us, the use case associated with AWS Systems Manager was a better fit for our specific needs and skillsets. We did not need everything that AWS Control Tower was doing for us.
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Cisco
Our school is based in Microsoft 365. Azure has a product built into their licensing (provided you have purchased the appropriate level or the add-on product.) The MFA in Azure is a work in process and doesn't offer broad integration options as Duo does. We didn't look into any other commercial products.
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Scalability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Cisco
So far, the only limits we've encountered were tied to our imagination. Duo's strong list of supported integrations is amazing.
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Less time manually deploying accounts which was error prone.
  • Central logging allowed us to have 1 place to view logs.
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Cisco
  • Very positive ROI given it is inexpensive for a small group and helps us secure our most valuable IT assets.
  • Lack of extreme policy granularity results in higher administrative overhead, as there is no middle ground (i.e. MFA every time or not at all).
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