Cisco Duo vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Microsoft Azure
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.
$29
per month
Pricing
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Azure
Editions & Modules
Duo Essentials
$3
per month per user
Duo Advantage
$6
per month per user
Duo Premier
$9
per month per user
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Azure
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Azure
Considered Both Products
Cisco Duo
Chose Cisco Duo
We looked at user Azure AD MFA but ultimately went with DUO because of their level of experience and the installation services. After using both, I don't really have an issue with either one and would be happy with either product to support and to trust in the security.
Chose Cisco Duo
General user support, setting up new devices, migrating users (who have a new phone) is painless. It also provides options, so if push notifications don't work, or just because a users has a preference, you can receive phone call authentication - great feature which means you …
Chose Cisco Duo
Cisco Secure Access by Duo, against WatchGuard AuthPoint, is a broader tool with more applicability across applications to my knowledge. I also find it to be faster, and simpler for users to understand. For example, with Authpoint, the tokens that appear and "count down" seem …
Chose Cisco Duo
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 …
Chose Cisco Duo
Duo Security has everything that we need. Didn’t find any missing feature. Quality of support as I mentioned before, is amazing. Easy to set up and use as compared to others. Pleasurable in terms of doing business with. Provides multi device sync and also backs up data. …
Chose Cisco Duo
Azure is free so with our Microsoft 365 licenses so that is going to be tough to get away from that. Duo / Cisco Secure Access, by Duo, is a better platform for both Windows and Linux.
Chose Cisco Duo
Okta does offer similar solutions to Duo / Cisco Secure Access, by Duo, but Okta has a higher price-point from our initial investigations into which provider to use. The support that we received from Duo was top-notch and the ease of use really helped to decide which solution …
Chose Cisco Duo
Quite well. Ease of use and ability to integrate with multiple platforms is very strong.
Chose Cisco Duo
We looked at Okta, and Okta is a great solution, but much larger in scope than what we needed. When we start our journey to identify/access management we will definitely consider them.

Microsoft was useful too, and minimal cost. It didn't seem to have as much support from …
Microsoft Azure

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Azure
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Duo
-
Ratings
Microsoft Azure
8.6
17 Ratings
6% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.716 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings9.316 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.816 Ratings
Pre-configured templates00 Ratings7.016 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.016 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.415 Ratings
Operating system support00 Ratings9.516 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings9.016 Ratings
Automation00 Ratings8.715 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Azure
Small Businesses
WatchGuard AuthPoint
WatchGuard AuthPoint
Score 9.0 out of 10
Akamai Cloud Computing
Akamai Cloud Computing
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WatchGuard AuthPoint
WatchGuard AuthPoint
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloud App ID
IBM Cloud App ID
Score 9.4 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(135 ratings)
8.5
(88 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(10 ratings)
10.0
(15 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(76 ratings)
9.0
(27 ratings)
Availability
9.9
(9 ratings)
6.8
(2 ratings)
Performance
9.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(91 ratings)
8.8
(27 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.7
(10 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.7
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.7
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco DuoMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
In terms of cloud computing, Microsoft Azure is the only comprehensive result the company offers. Regardless of how big or small an organization is, it can make use of this system. As a cyber-security professional, this is your best option for data management. A business that wants to minimize capital expenditures can use Microsoft Azure. Many Microsoft services accept it. People with little or no knowledge of cloud computing may find it impossible. It isn’t the solution for companies that don’t want to risk having only one platform and infrastructure vendor.
Read full review
Pros
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
Microsoft
  • Azure simply provides end to end life cycle. Starting from the development to automated deployment, you will find [a] bunch of options. Custom hook-points allow [integration] on-premise resources as well.
  • Excellent documentation around all the services make it really easy for any novice. Overall support by [the] community and Azure Technical team is exceptional.
  • BOT Services, Computer Vision services, ML frameworks provide excellent results as compare to similar services provided by other giants in the same space.
  • Azure data services provide excellent support to ingest data from different sources, ETL, and consumption of data for BI purpose.
Read full review
Cons
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • In our experience, Azure Kubernetes Survice was difficult to set up, which is why we used Kubernetes on top of VMs.
  • Azure REST API is a bit difficult to use, which made it difficult for us to automate our interactions with Azure.
  • Azure's Web UI does a good job of showing metrics on individual VMs, but it would be great if there was a way to show certain metrics from multiple VMs on one dashboard. For example, hard drive usage on our database VMs.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Microsoft
Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
Microsoft Azure's overall usability has been better than expected. Often times vendors promise the world, only to leave you with a run-down town. Not the case with our experience. From an implementation perspective, all went perfect, and from the user-facing experience we have had no technical issues, just some learning curve issues that are more about "why" than "how"
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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!
Read full review
Microsoft
Support is easy with all the knowledge base articles available for free on the web. Plus, if you have a preferred status you can leverage their concierge support to get rapid response. Sometimes they’ll bounce you around a lot to get you to the right person, but they are quite responsive (especially when you are paying for the service). Many of the older Microsoft skills are also transferable from old-school on-prem to Azure-based virtual interfaces.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
Read full review
Scalability
Cisco
So far, the only limits we've encountered were tied to our imagination. Duo's strong list of supported integrations is amazing.
Read full review
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).
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Brings down Capex to customers.
  • Some of the built-in security features of DDoS Basic protection that comes with VNET on Azure or even WAF on AGW brings huge advantages to customers.
  • Hybrid benefits for those who have software assurance can save even more costs by moving to Azure.
Read full review
ScreenShots