Auth0 Platform vs Duo Adaptive Access: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Auth0 Platform

Developer teams building customer-facing applications need Auth0 Platform because it eliminates the authentication infrastructure tax, letting engineers ship passwordless login and adaptive MFA without building IAM from scratch. The platform covers NIST CSF 2.0 PR.AA identity and access control requirements across cloud deployments at scale, and its Organizations feature handles B2B multi-tenancy patterns that otherwise require months of custom work. Skip this if your priority is on-premises federation or you need deep authorization policy engines; Auth0's fine-grained authorization APIs are solid but secondary to its authentication strength.

Duo Adaptive Access

Teams protecting distributed workforces will find Duo Adaptive Access most valuable for its risk-based decision engine that actually blocks access before compromise rather than logging it afterward. The push to continuous authentication and real-time threat detection maps directly to NIST CSF 2.0's Identity Management function, meaning your access controls adapt to actual risk instead of static rules. Skip this if you need device inventory and vulnerability correlation; Duo assumes your devices are already managed elsewhere.