Duo Security vs Keycloak

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.

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.

Keycloak starts at Free (open source) / Red Hat Build of Keycloak via subscription (open source + enterprise subscription). Duo Security starts at Free (up to 10 users) / Essentials $3/user/month / Advantage $6/user/month / Premier $9/user/month (per-user monthly subscription with free tier). As always, the sticker price only tells part of the story. Factor in add-ons, implementation costs, and what's actually included at each tier.

It depends on how deeply Duo Security is embedded in your stack. Most teams run both in parallel for a few weeks before cutting over. Check whether Keycloak supports importing your existing configs or policies. That's usually the biggest time sink.