Cisco Duo vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Duo
Score 9.5 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
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (formerly Microsoft Defender ATP) is a holistic, cloud delivered endpoint security solution that includes risk-based vulnerability management and assessment, attack surface reduction, behavioral based and cloud-powered next generation protection, endpoint detection and response (EDR), automatic investigation and remediation, managed hunting services, rich APIs, and unified security management.
$2.50
per user/per month
Pricing
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Editions & Modules
Duo Essentials
$3
per month per user
Duo Advantage
$6
per month per user
Duo Premier
$9
per month per user
Academic
$2.50
per user/per month
Standalone
$5.20
per user/per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Endpoint Security
Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Duo
-
Ratings
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
8.3
61 Ratings
2% below category average
Anti-Exploit Technology00 Ratings8.158 Ratings
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)00 Ratings8.860 Ratings
Centralized Management00 Ratings8.360 Ratings
Hybrid Deployment Support00 Ratings7.610 Ratings
Infection Remediation00 Ratings8.559 Ratings
Vulnerability Management00 Ratings8.356 Ratings
Malware Detection00 Ratings8.760 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Small Businesses
WatchGuard AuthPoint
WatchGuard AuthPoint
Score 8.9 out of 10
ThreatLocker
ThreatLocker
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WatchGuard AuthPoint
WatchGuard AuthPoint
Score 8.9 out of 10
CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloud App ID
IBM Cloud App ID
Score 10.0 out of 10
BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management
BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Likelihood to Recommend
9.4
(150 ratings)
8.4
(104 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(10 ratings)
8.4
(8 ratings)
Usability
9.6
(76 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.9
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.8
(90 ratings)
8.2
(6 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.9
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.9
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.5
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Defender for Endpoint
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Cisco Duois is well suited in all kinds of scenarios where you need to ensure proper security measurements, I think. We can't just rely on our passwords only, as they can be easily stolen through phishing or data breaches thus keeping multi factor authentication is quite essential. I always prefer MFA or at least 2FA for any critical system.
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Microsoft
I think it's well suited as a drop-in EDR, really an XDR, I guess if you want to go there. A platform for most organizations. I think it lacks some of the granularity in off-the-shelf rule sets that I want for defense Industrial base or financial services clients. For heavily targeted organizations, I think it requires a lot more customization than some of the competitor products off the shelf. So if you get there, it's not there day one.
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Pros
Cisco
  • So outside the obvious of multifactor and it being important, one thing I really like about DUO is the integrations and the options it has for integrations are pretty great. And I'd say versatile. I use Cisco ICE as well and I find I'm more most impressed with Cisco Duo specifically with the weird applications we could come up with for it in using it. So I had say the versatility of authentication and other AAA factors with the Cisco duo are why we like it so much.
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Microsoft
  • It integrates perfectly with Azure Sentinel. I mean, that's great. We can have a single pane of class with other platforms, like Defender for Cloud, Defender for endpoints, and Defender for servers, which is awesome as well. The ease of deployment is because Microsoft made sure around a year ago that every single workstation with Microsoft Windows came with Defender for Endpoints embedded.
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Cons
Cisco
  • Documentation is oftentimes missing key information for proper implementation. This is circumvented by reading third-party guides or contacting support for additional details.
  • They do not push Fail-Closed as much as I think they should. Fail-Open is fairly trivial to bypass and it should be made known to the customer during setup how much this will affect overall security.
  • More vendor integration is something that is always craved by administrators. There are so many third-parties to integrate with.
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Microsoft
  • While it's a very good product for auditing, it has a very hard time to distinguish what is malicious and is an attack, what is not. Very rarely we get indication of a real malicious attack. We got lots of hours for off the shelf malware that it cleans up automatically. So basically we never get to look at it, which is a positive thing, but threats are detected by the third party endpoint, so it will not be enough by itself.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Microsoft
Cost add-ons for Security features is nickel and diming the process to keep pace with cybercrime. Limited Education budgets require us to be more pro-active in finding cost-effective measures to protect our devices, staff and students. Defender is a strong, well-featured product that is pricing itself out of the education market
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Usability
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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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
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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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Performance
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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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
I have not needed direct support for Cisco Secure Access by Duo as I have not had a problem with it, but I have full confidence that the support is outstanding. It is now a core component of the corporate technology stack - a problem would mean a serious degradation in the ability of the company to function.
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Microsoft
The first time I tried to onboard my macOS endpoints to MDE I struggled for quite a bit. I had to reach out to Microsoft's MDE support team. The tech was very helpful in walking me through the steps during a screen share session
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In-Person Training
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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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Online Training
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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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
It's easier to deploy. When comparing the quality of technical support, Duo Security is the preferred option. Duo has better integration options for out-to-the-box on-premise and cloud applications. The dashboard brings you more reports, and the access event logging is very complete. The quality of end-user training and documentation is superior. I think the relation price vs. value Cisco Secure Access by Duo has the best rating: service & support, integration & deployment, licensing, and capability.
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Microsoft
I would say not to name specific company names, because I'm a partner with one of them and that's the account that I work with. But I use some competing solutions that I would say are pretty heavy from an overhead perspective with the agent that has to be installed in the machine. It can be too restrictive for permissions where it gets in the way of an employee doing their job and the ability for Defender to be secure in that, but still allow an employee to go about their day and do what they need to do is certainly a change maker there. But yeah, from the other products perspective across the years, whether it be business or personal, some other products I can name are other endpoint protections from Vera Avast, McAfee, of course as folks remember that. And some of the other major players too that I would say a large networking company that doubles in security as well. I'll name them that way.
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Scalability
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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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
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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Microsoft
  • Reduced incidents of security breaches lead to lower remediation costs and avoid potential financial losses and reputational damage.
  • Reduces the need for additional third-party security solutions and training, thereby lowering overall security management costs.
  • Increased efficiency and productivity of IT staff lead to better allocation of resources and cost savings.
  • Reduces the risk of fines and sanctions associated with non-compliance, ensuring business continuity and protecting revenue.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Screenshots

Screenshot of blocked activitiesScreenshot of Detects & respondsScreenshot of discovers vulnerabilityScreenshot of Eliminates blind spotsScreenshot of Risk management