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Certificate Lifecycle Manager vs Secret Double Octopus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 2, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Sponsored
Ranking in Authentication Systems
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
176
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (5th), Access Management (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st), AI Data Analysis (7th)
Certificate Lifecycle Manager
Ranking in Authentication Systems
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Certificate Management Software (2nd)
Secret Double Octopus
Ranking in Authentication Systems
36th
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Passwordless Authentication (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.7%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Certificate Lifecycle Manager is 2.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Secret Double Octopus is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Duo3.7%
Certificate Lifecycle Manager2.4%
Secret Double Octopus0.7%
Other93.2%
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Charles Slaustas - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
Supports seamless authentication for users across multiple organizations and personal portals
The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter. I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.
Deb Malya - PeerSpot reviewer
Section Head Cybersecurity at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Strong privileged access controls have protected critical sessions and improved credential oversight
The best features of CyberArk Certificate Manager include its robust privileged access management capability, session monitoring, and strong defense against threat vectors. PSM, PIM, and application legacy connectivity for CyberArk Certificate Manager are probably the best in the market. The real-time threat intelligence feature helps with preventing security breaches as it never allows any privileged access to get into the application until you check out the user ID and password, effectively managing credentials. It also includes MFA and session monitoring, tracking who is checking out the password and credentials, which are capabilities that cannot be bypassed, thus neutralizing threat protection. I use features like PSM, PIM, session monitoring, and everything else with CyberArk Certificate Manager.
Gaurav Gaurav - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
A solution with good capabilities across a wide range of platforms that comes with a useful mobile application, but upgrades cause issues
We have noticed that patches and upgrades cause issues with how the application functions, due to the lack of stability of the product. However, we would recommend the solution because it has good capabilities, across a wide range of platforms, and the mobile application allows for use via Bluetooth, so users don't have to be connected to the internet. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The biggest overall impact of Cisco Duo on our company has been the peace of mind it provides, helping us sleep a little more soundly at night knowing that we have that layer there, and operationally, it has fostered more trust when it comes to logging into systems."
"I would assess the stability and reliability of Cisco Duo as excellent because once we got it working, we have never had an issue."
"Cisco Duo benefits the company by increasing the security footprint, and it is easy to manage users, disable users, or bypass if needed in case of an emergency."
"The biggest benefit of Cisco Duo for my customers is the license because they count licenses for the user—one user can use many applications integrated with Cisco Duo."
"The feature of Cisco Duo that I value the most is that it's easy to use; it monitors all our devices to ensure everything is updated before we're given access to those applications."
"My experience with Cisco Duo's strong security authentication system has been good; it performs very well when logging in."
"Cisco Duo's integration is smooth and very quick."
"We get fewer threats to remediate due to the two-factor authentication, which does not allow as many threats through."
"It's definitely worth the money to have Venafi as a tool; it's definitely miles away from the competition, in my opinion."
"Certificate Manager has reduced the certificate expiration outages to almost nil, and since 2022, we have had almost zero major incidents wherein we saw a financial impact or business disruption due to an expired certificate."
"CyberArk Certificate Manager has positively impacted my organization as a powerful tool for enhancing the security certificate management process, and by automating the lifecycle of TLS and SSL certificates, it has improved security and ensured operational efficiency, making it a vital component of modern IT infrastructure management."
"We have reduced 80% to 90% of our outages with Venafi, which impacts the revenue substantially."
"Certificate Manager's ability to help with compliance and regulatory requirements, including SOX and Swift, was great; this is a major selling point."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is their certificate discovery."
"Venafi takes care of automatically renewing and deploying your certificate so that you don't need to worry when it expires."
"Since using CyberArk Certificate Manager, it saves a lot of time, reduces errors, and makes compliance much easier."
"This solution has a mobile application, which comes with multi-factor authentication; allowing for more flexible usage, without having to sacrifice system security."
 

Cons

"Cisco Duo can be improved by integration into Security Cloud Control, which would be a significant advantage."
"From an administrative standpoint, I'd love to see it be a little better at remembering a device and location so that I don't have to continually authenticate. That's pretty much it."
"Cisco Duo can be improved because people have their own personal mobile devices."
"Cisco Duo could benefit from improvements in certain areas that are important to us."
"I think Cisco Duo can be improved. I found the onboarding was very difficult, even for engineers who have been using similar solutions before."
"They could just continue to add more integrations."
"End-users find it more annoying than anything else."
"For a non-prepared, non-technical user, it could be tricky and quite complex."
"Venafi could enhance its offerings by providing more automation features."
"There's definitely lots of room for improvement with Venafi. They have a website where we can suggest new features, and they need to take that a little bit more seriously."
"The on-prem version is far more mature than the cloud version, which lacks a lot of features that the on-prem version offers, at least when we did the POC and evaluated the product."
"Regarding needed improvements, the UI needs enhancement. Sometimes it experiences latency-wise issues."
"Regarding stability, I observed that in the last year, CyberArk Certificate Manager was down two to three times without any notification."
"The initial setup is complex. You need third-party support or support from CyberArk Certificate Manager if you do not have a lot of skillset inside your own company."
"Unfortunately, we didn’t receive a notification from Venafi because it wasn't configured correctly, which led to a loss of around 12 million dollars."
"Venafi's overall installation could be made easier."
"The product suffers from frequent disturbances in service, that have impacted our end users when we deploy software updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."
"It has a fair pricing model. I know they have different tiers, but it would be nice to have different types of licenses for certain groups of users in our organization. That way, we wouldn't have to lump everybody into one group. That would be also one complaint."
"Their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing costs."
"The cost was reasonable. Licensing was pretty straightforward for a change."
"Our licensing fee is currently on an annual basis."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"Venafi's pricing appears to be competitive within the market."
"The pricing model is complex, considering factors beyond the number of certificates. This complexity can make our payments to Venafi challenging if costs continue to rise. It is good but more expensive than the competitors."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise93
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Du...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
Regarding the pricing, what actually happened was that we got the product purchased through our HQ, so the costing as...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
I do not have a straight answer for how Cisco Duo can be improved at this time. With the implementation that we are g...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Venafi?
In terms of pricing, they are a little costly, but they are the best in the market today, so I would say they are wor...
What needs improvement with Venafi?
CyberArk Certificate Manager can be improved, particularly in terms of integrations with other tools. I would like to...
What advice do you have for others considering Venafi?
Since using CyberArk Certificate Manager, I have seen specific outcomes such as a reduction in incidents because I ca...
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Also Known As

Duo Security
Venafi
Octopus Authenticator
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Surescripts, CME Group, TD Bank Group, Aetna, MoneyGram, Zions Bancorp, Cisco
United Technologies (UTC), American Family Association, ASL Airlines France, BNP Paribas, A Fortune 50 Bank, Bingham County Idaho, Britannia Financial Services, Carolina Behavioral Health Alliance LLC, European Commission, County of Midland Michigan, JRM Construction Management, Greer Commission of Public Works, Poste Italiane, Kennedy Wilson Europe, Key Mechanical, Marker Therapeutics Inc, Mediawan, Ministero Dell'interno, FairPrice, NTUC Health, Mercatus, TBC, Techni-Photo, Tinsa Group, Yates Law, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Z-Medica Corporation, A Member of the 5 largest US law firms.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cisco, Okta and others in Authentication Systems. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.