Authentik vs Cisco Duo
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Cisco Duo is the stronger AI pick in Identity & Access Management: it has a visibility score of 16.5 versus 2.7 for Authentik, and ranks ahead in 100% of the answers that name both.
Choose Authentik if…
- AI answers describe it more positively (67% vs 50% positive)
- You need OpenID Certified coverage
- fully open-source, self-hosted IAM platform
- modern UI
Choose Cisco Duo if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (16.5 vs 2.7)
- You want a lower entry price ($3 vs $5)
- You need FedRAMP High (Duo Federal) or FedRAMP Moderate (Duo Federal) or GovRAMP or TX-RAMP or FIPS 140-3 coverage
- Low-friction, reliable MFA
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | Authentik | Cisco Duo |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 2.7% | 16.5% |
| Change vs last week | up+1.7% | down−0.6% |
| Rank in Identity & Access Management | #24 | #6 |
| Share of voice | 0.6% | 4.2% |
| Mentions this run | 2 | 14 |
| Positive in AI answers | 67% | 50% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Authentik +1.0000000000000002pp · Cisco Duo +0.10000000000000142pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Cisco Duo leads on 1 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
1 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | Authentik | Cisco Duo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is there a free identity and access management platform for small teams? | Perplexity | #5 | #3 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Authentik | Cisco Duo |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per seat | Per seat |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $5 per seat / mo | Free; paid from $3 per seat / mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Self-hosted (Kubernetes, Terraform, Docker Compose, AWS CloudFormation); no hosted version offered | Cloud |
| Integrations | — | 500+ |
| Compliance | OpenID Certified | FedRAMP High (Duo Federal), FedRAMP Moderate (Duo Federal), GovRAMP, TX-RAMP, FIPS 140-3 |
| Support | Community Discord, GitHub community support, Ticket-based support (Enterprise over $1k), Dedicated support with SLAs (Enterprise Plus) | Technical documentation, Knowledge base, Community |
| Founded | 2018 | 2010 |
| Headquarters | — | Ann Arbor, MI, United States |
| Employees | 1–10 | — |
| Funding | Later-stage VC · $2M raised | Venture Round |
| Best for | Organizations that want to self-host their identity provider and keep control of their identity data, from homelabs to enterprises with thousands of users. | Organizations from small businesses to enterprises and government that want phishing-resistant MFA and simple IAM. |
Plans side by side
Authentik
Cisco Duo
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Authentik
- fully open-source, self-hosted IAM platform
- modern UI
- easy to administer
- affordable, reliable, secure IAM platform for business use
- highly flexible with built-in MFA and proxy outposts
- you must manage hosting, updates, backups, and security yourself
Cisco Duo
- Low-friction, reliable MFA
- Zero Trust device trust and endpoint visibility
- Phishing-resistant MFA, SSO, and device trust
- Free tier for up to 10 users
- Highest PeerSpot rating among access-management products
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 98.8%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Authentik vs Cisco Duo”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/authentik-vs-cisco-duo, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.