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Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) vs Cisco Sourcefire SNORT comparison

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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)
6th
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)
12th
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 September 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is 3.4%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 2.9%, up from 2.7% 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)3.4%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT2.9%
Other93.7%
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

"Cisco NGIPS is highly stable."
"The most valuable features of Cisco NGIPS are the VPN, IPS, access policy management, EIM, and the ASA model as part of Firepower."
"Ir's signature-based. We are also using the anomaly baseline formation, where it links the network, then anything that goes away from the norm is also flagged. Those are the two most valuable features."
"It has good intelligence. It does a great job at stopping threats."
"I like how NGIPS has everything in one console."
"Cisco's technical support is very, very fast."
"The initial setup wasn't complex or complicated."
"This is a stable solution."
"Solid intrusion detection and prevention that scales easily in very large environments."
"The URL filtering is very good and you can create a group for customized URLs."
"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"With Cisco Sourcefire SNORT, we've been able to prevent and detect intrusion in our network and actually decrease our SLA (Service Level Agreement)."
"It simplifies the configuration process by offering pre-defined base configurations, including security and connectivity settings."
"The solution is rather easy to use."
"It is quite an intelligent product."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
 

Cons

"It has room for improvement when it comes to integrating machine learning and AI into it where even if you don't have a baseline that is of length for anomaly detection, it could do more like an AI style machine learning. It learns on its own."
"Cisco NGIPS could improve its ability to do SSL inspections."
"Considering different attack vectors, using AI to understand the behavior or features of network-level intrusions and protecting against zero-day attacks would be beneficial."
"The feedback from some of our customers is that they weren't interested in Cisco because it was too complicated to deploy, especially in cloud-related areas."
"Our customers are still facing many bugs on the system. It has matured noticeably, but we are still facing multiple stability issues on Firepower. There are more than 80 or 90 bugs for each release node. It's a considerable number of bugs."
"We would like to see some improvement in the configuration process for this solution, as it is currently quite complex."
"Customer support needs improvement."
"Overall, it lacks user-friendliness. It could be easier to manage."
"This solution needs to be more customizable."
"I would like to have analytics included in the suite."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"We are unhappy with technical support for this solution, and it is not as professional as what we typically expect from Cisco."
"This is a good solution, but some others may have some advantages."
"Sometimes the solution will offer up false positives."
"To be frank, the product is not really stable, although they're working on that."
"The cloud can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a very affordable product."
"The price of Cisco NGIPS could be reduced. It is more expensive than other solutions."
"We pay for the IPS license to use this solution."
"There is a license required to use Cisco NGIPS and it can be a one or three-year license."
"There are licensing fees depending on the features that you are using."
"The solution is pricey, but worth it."
"The licensing can be billed annually or in multi-year contracts such as three, four, or five years."
"This is an expensive product, with the biggest cost being the license that keeps the service going."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
"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."
"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
"If one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is cheap, I rate the tool's price as a five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise9
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: August 2026.
911,602 professionals have used our research since 2012.