Compared: JumpCloud MFA vs Duo for a healthcare clinic. Duo won on reliability.

Hey folks! Just wrapped up a 6-month evaluation of JumpCloud and Duo for a 50-person healthcare clinic's MFA rollout. We were really hoping to consolidate with JumpCloud (already using it for directory and device management), but in the end, we had to go with Duo. The short story: Duo's reliability for critical clinical app access was just unmatched.

Here’s the breakdown of what we found:

**JumpCloud MFA (Radius & SSO):**
* **Pros:** Super clean integration if you're already in the JumpCloud ecosystem. Their conditional access policies are solid, and the price is attractive for an all-in-one platform. We had it working for most internal web apps via SAML. Setting up a test RADIUS server for VPN was straightforward with their Terraform provider:
```hcl
resource "jumpcloud_application" "vpn_app" {
name = "Clinic_VPN"
sso_url = var.sso_url
idp_cert_id = jumpcloud_cert.idp_cert.id
}
```
* **Cons:** We hit a few inconsistent RADIUS auth prompts for the EMR system at remote clinics. More critically, the push notifications to the JumpCloud App had sporadic delays (sometimes 30+ seconds) during peak hours. In a clinic, every second counts when a doc is trying to access patient records.

**Duo MFA:**
* **Pros:** Rock. Solid. Zero failures or noticeable delays during the entire pilot. The failover modes (like offline bypass codes) are more polished for healthcare workflows. Their telephony backend for phone callbacks just worked more reliably in areas with spotty cell service.
* **Cons:** It's another point solution, so adds complexity and cost. Configuration is mostly via their admin panel, though they have a decent API for automation.

**The Verdict:**
For a general business, JumpCloud MFA might be perfectly fine. But for healthcare, where reliable access *is* security, Duo's proven track record won. The slight integration headache was worth the peace of mind. We're keeping JumpCloud for directory and Mac/Windows management but piping all critical MFA to Duo.

Has anyone else tried a similar split setup? Curious how you're automating user provisioning between the two systems – I have some Ansible playbooks I can share.

~CloudOps