Keycloak vs Duo Security

Duo Security and Keycloak are both mfa & zero trust access solutions. Duo Security cisco's MFA and zero trust access platform known for ease of deployment, while Keycloak open-source IAM platform with SSO, identity brokering, and fine-grained authorization. The best choice depends on your organization's size, technical requirements, and budget.

Updated Feb 2026

Summary

Choose Duo Security if exceptionally easy to deploy. Fastest MFA rollout in the industry is your priority and organizations prioritizing easy-to-deploy MFA across VPNs, cloud apps, and legacy systems, especially those in Cisco networking environments. Choose Keycloak if completely free. No licensing costs regardless of user count matters most and organizations with engineering expertise that want full control over their identity platform, avoid vendor lock-in, and eliminate IAM licensing costs.

Choose Keycloak if:

  • You value exceptionally easy to deploy. Fastest MFA rollout in the industry
  • You value duo Push is the most user-friendly MFA experience available
  • You value strong VPN and legacy application MFA support
  • You want to avoid requires significant engineering effort to deploy, scale, and maintain
  • You want to avoid no managed cloud service. You own all infrastructure operations

Choose Duo Security if:

  • You value completely free. No licensing costs regardless of user count
  • You value full source code access enables deep customization
  • You value self-hosted deployment gives complete data sovereignty
  • You want to avoid sSO capabilities are less mature than dedicated IAM platforms like Okta
  • You want to avoid limited identity lifecycle management and provisioning features

Feature Comparison

FeatureKeycloakDuo Security
PricingFree (up to 10 users) / Essentials $3/user/month / Advantage $6/user/month / Premier $9/user/monthFree (open source) / Red Hat SSO for enterprise support
Pricing ModelPer-user monthly subscription with free tierFree open source with optional commercial support
Open SourceNoYes
DeploymentCloudSelf-Hosted
Best ForOrganizations prioritizing easy-to-deploy MFA across VPNs, cloud apps, and legacy systems, especially those in Cisco networking environmentsOrganizations with engineering expertise that want full control over their identity platform, avoid vendor lock-in, and eliminate IAM licensing costs
Push-based multi-factor authenticatio...SupportedNot available
Device trust and health verificationSupportedNot available
Adaptive access policies based on use...SupportedNot available

Sources

Related

Keycloak AlternativesDuo Security AlternativesKeycloak OverviewDuo Security Overview