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Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) vs Cisco Sourcefire SNORT comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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 Secure IPS (NGIPS)
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is 3.3%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS)3.3%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT3.1%
Other93.6%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer373227 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Marketing strengths shine but regaining user trust needs significant effort
There are numerous things that could be improved about Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) to get it back on track. Sollution for small branches: when we have to connect a lot very small branches (or sometimes only an ATM) we need something small, with LTE and with reasonable price. Cisco response is SDWAN but it is not always the case. Recently Cisco released some small firewalls but I have not tried them yet. Central management with FMC is a very good idea, but sometimes local management or monitoring is helpfull. With Cisco You have to decide: central or local. You cannot have both. Regarding usability, when you commit configuration on Cisco, it sometimes takes very long. Commits also take some time for the competition, but Cisco is definitely lagging behind the rest in this respect. Last but not least, for me as a professional is lack of CLI. With CLI, I can configure every firewall on the market except Cisco. CLI is very important in professional working, and IMHO it was an unwise decision by Cisco to remove it. Graphical interfaces are very nice, but when you've got thousands of objects in a big installation and have to configure many things, CLI is a much faster way to do it.
reviewer2772102 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Logging and customizable rules have helped improve threat monitoring and detection
The logging is mainly what I consider one of the best features with Cisco Sourcefire SNORT. Being able to log and store it in a file allows you to push it to a centralized repository. The logging and reporting help improve incident response. You should always be logging threats, any sort of misconfiguration, and anything that could be an issue. It's important to at least log and monitor it. The basic rules provide a good baseline in assessing Cisco Sourcefire SNORT's ability in providing real-time analytics for threat detection, but as a professional, you should look to constantly modify that baseline. They provide extensive customizability so you can define your own rules. The customizability allows it to be adaptable in protecting against diverse network threats to the constant change.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support is impressive."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its modularity, so whenever you need to upgrade or add another service, you don't need to buy another box."
"The most valuable features of Cisco NGIPS are protection and reporting."
"Cisco NGIPS is working well overall with our current needs."
"The solution is very powerful coupled with Firepower."
"Cisco has many products that are easily integrated with other services."
"The URL filtering feature and the new locations feature are both valuable additions to the solution."
"It is more or less stable. Sometimes I have some issues normally when we need to upgrade it to newer versions. I think it does the job."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
"Cisco technical support is unbeatable. It offers a premium service every time."
"Scalability is something that Cisco has always cared about."
"Solid intrusion detection and prevention that scales easily in very large environments."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT are the dashboard for monitoring events."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"The solution is rather easy to use."
"This solution makes life a lot easier as there are fewer man-hours required and we no longer need too many resources to manage it."
 

Cons

"Better integration with other products, such as a SIEM tool, would provide better peer visibility about your security posture."
"The time it takes for the product to mature, the maturity journey, the product maturity cycle, takes too long."
"The look and feel of the console could be updated."
"Some Next-Generation Firewall solutions come with Intrusion Prevention. It would be nice if Cisco NGIPS included that."
"Some Next-Generation Firewall solutions come with Intrusion Prevention. It would be nice if Cisco NGIPS included that."
"We have a separate management controller for Cisco NGIPS. If they have not done it already they should integrate Cisco NGIPS with the Cloud Portal."
"The only thing I think they may need to improve on a little bit is identifying software more correctly when you do network discovery."
"We don't like its licensing model. It has separate licensing for all the features."
"This solution needs to be more customizable."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"The main dashboard of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could improve."
"I don't think this solution is a time-based control system, because one cannot filter traffic based on time."
"The pricing needs to be improved. We have lots of low-budget clients around us. Budget constraints are always a deterrent in our market."
"There are problems setting up VPNs for some regions."
"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing four out of 10."
"The licensing can be billed annually or in multi-year contracts such as three, four, or five years."
"It is expensive. It has separate licensing for all the features, and every feature set seems to require another license. Licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs besides the standard licensing fee."
"We get cut in price since we use other Cisco products. We have the whole bundle of Cisco solutions."
"Cisco products are always expensive, but if you can afford the price then it's a great solution."
"I would rate the pricing 4 out of 5."
"In our company, we know that the price of Cisco products is high, especially for its switches, routers and IOS. The price of Cisco products may be twice its original price if you plan to extend some of its features."
"Cisco NGIPS is an expensive product."
"I don't know the exact amount, but most of the time when I go to a company with a proposition, they will say, "This thing that you are selling is good, but it's expensive. Why don't you propose something like FortiGate, Check Point, or Palo Alto?" Cisco device are expensive compared to other devices."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
"If one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is cheap, I rate the tool's price as a five."
"We have a three-year license for this solution."
"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco NGIPS?
I would rate the price for Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) as high.
What needs improvement with Cisco NGIPS?
I am aware that we are not measuring some metrics or tracking access through Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS). In my opinion, Cisco could improve the Web GUI for Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS).
What is your primary use case for Cisco NGIPS?
Our main use case for Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is in-line traffic control, and we are using IPS in an in-line mode.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Sourcefire SNORT?
If one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is cheap, I rate the tool's price as a five. There are some other tools in the market that are more expensive than Cisco. There are no additional c...
What needs improvement with Cisco Sourcefire SNORT?
I have not had much experience with the community-driven rule set while utilizing Cisco Sourcefire SNORT. I don't have experience with recognizing zero-day vulnerabilities, but based on my knowledg...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Sourcefire SNORT?
Endpoint protection is the main use case. The main aspect involves specifying different rules, and when network traffic hits these rules, it will try to block the traffic or at least log the traffi...
 

Also Known As

Sourcefire NGIPS, Firepower NGIPS
Sourcefire SNORT
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Electric Power, Huntington Bank, Keycorp, Nationwide, Transunion, Marriott, Inova Health, Ford, Thomson Reuters, Dow Chemical, Equifax, Chevron, Walmart, Coca Cola
CareCore, City of Biel, Dimension Data, LightEdge, Lone Star College System, National Rugby League, Port Aventura, Smart City Networks, Telecom Italia, The Department of Education in Western Australia
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) vs. Cisco Sourcefire SNORT and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.