Cisco Duo vs Descope
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 1.9 for Descope, and ranks ahead in 0% of the answers that name both.
Choose Cisco Duo if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (16.5 vs 1.9)
- You want a lower entry price ($3 vs $249)
- You need FedRAMP High (Duo Federal) or FedRAMP Moderate (Duo Federal) or GovRAMP or TX-RAMP or FIPS 140-3 coverage
- Per seat pricing suits your budget better than usage-based
Choose Descope if…
- AI answers describe it more positively (62% vs 50% positive)
- You need SOC 2 Type 2 or ISO 27001 or CSA STAR Level 2 or PCI DSS or HIPAA or FedRAMP High coverage
- Usage-based pricing suits your budget better than per seat
- Low-code option
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | Cisco Duo | Descope |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 16.5% | 1.9% |
| Change vs last week | down−0.6% | down−3% |
| Rank in Identity & Access Management | #6 | #26 |
| Share of voice | 4.2% | 0.6% |
| Mentions this run | 14 | 2 |
| Positive in AI answers | 50% | 62% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Cisco Duo +0.10000000000000142pp · Descope −2pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Cisco Duo leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
1 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | Cisco Duo | Descope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which identity and access management platform has the best reviews? | Perplexity | #5 | #4 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Cisco Duo | Descope |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per seat | Usage-based |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $3 per seat / mo | Free; paid from $249 / mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud SaaS |
| Integrations | 500+ | — |
| Compliance | FedRAMP High (Duo Federal), FedRAMP Moderate (Duo Federal), GovRAMP, TX-RAMP, FIPS 140-3 | SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, CSA STAR Level 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA, FedRAMP High |
| Support | Technical documentation, Knowledge base, Community | Community support, Web and email support, Slack support, Dedicated CS engineer |
| Founded | 2010 | 2022 |
| Headquarters | Ann Arbor, MI, United States | Los Altos, California, United States |
| Employees | — | 51–200 |
| Funding | Venture Round | Seed extension · $88M raised |
| Best for | Organizations from small businesses to enterprises and government that want phishing-resistant MFA and simple IAM. | Startups, SaaS companies and enterprises adding customer auth, B2B SSO/SCIM, or identity for AI agents and MCP servers. |
Plans side by side
Cisco Duo
Descope
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
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
Descope
- Low-code option
- High user ratings (4.8/5) in a narrow category
- Robust developer-focused free tier with built-in MFA
- Visual drag-and-drop workflow builder that is easy to use
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 98.8%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Cisco Duo vs Descope”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/cisco-duo-vs-descope, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.