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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

"We have found the product to be quite stable."
"Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is quite powerful for threat detection and includes botnet detection."
"Technical support is quite good. With firewalls, the last cases I had with Cisco were professionally handled quite quickly and it was great."
"The cost is the most valuable feature."
"NGIPS lets you map web requests to a specific user to determine who is downloading files and what they are accessing. You can use it to identify users downloading malware or track time wasters using Facebook or something like that. It gives you visibility into what your users are doing on the Internet."
"I am satisfied with Cisco's technical support, but I would rate it six out of ten."
"We are looking for cybersecurity threats, like Pinterest and this solution has a good IPS feature as well as its VirtualBox which helps us to save time for our daily routine tasks or issues."
"The most valuable features of Cisco NGIPS are the VPN, IPS, access policy management, EIM, and the ASA model as part of Firepower."
"It simplifies the configuration process by offering pre-defined base configurations, including security and connectivity settings."
"Cisco technical support is unbeatable. It offers a premium service every time."
"With Cisco Sourcefire SNORT, we've been able to prevent and detect intrusion in our network and actually decrease our SLA (Service Level Agreement)."
"The URL filtering is very good and you can create a group for customized URLs."
"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."
"Cisco technical support is unbeatable. It offers a premium service every time."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
 

Cons

"The inclusion of bandwidth management features would improve this product."
"What I don't like about Cisco recently is they keep changing the names, which makes it hard for customers and sometimes even us as engineers to know what is the solution they are speaking about."
"I would like to see integration with monitoring tools such as Nagios or BMC."
"The cost of adding additional throughput is very high and is an area of concern."
"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."
"In the next release I would like to see better reporting. I also find it's hard to act on the data it gives you."
"The onboarding process could be made a little bit better."
"Some Next-Generation Firewall solutions come with Intrusion Prevention. It would be nice if Cisco NGIPS included that."
"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
"The main dashboard of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could improve."
"The utopia is to see everything from one dashboard, but sometimes that's not very possible."
"The customization of the rules can be simplified."
"I don't think this solution is a time-based control system, because one cannot filter traffic based on time."
"Performance needs improvement."
"A lot of Cisco equipment is very good, but in judging the model of this solution that we have, I feel that it is the worst."
"Integration with other components — even Cisco's own products — can be enhanced to improve administrative experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is pricey, but worth it."
"The cost of the license depends on the level of support that you have with Cisco."
"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."
"The licensing can be billed annually or in multi-year contracts such as three, four, or five years."
"Cisco products are always expensive, but if you can afford the price then it's a great solution."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"The price for additional throughput is the highest in the industry."
"The price of the solution is expensive to a degree it cannot be used by small businesses. It is best suited for medium and enterprise businesses."
"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."
"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."
"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%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
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 do you like most about Cisco Sourcefire SNORT?
The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet.
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...
 

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.
886,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.