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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)
11th
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 January 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is 3.5%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS)3.5%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT3.1%
Other93.4%
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 use the solution for cybersecurity purposes. The tool helps us to identify anomalies that come from internal or external networks."
"Technical support is quite good. With firewalls, the last cases I had with Cisco were professionally handled quite quickly and it was great."
"The top features of Cisco NGIPS, which have been working very well, include stateful inspection and the access list-based security configuration. But from my perspective, the best part of Cisco NGIPS is the licensing process, which is very easy and straightforward. It's essentially copy-paste licensing."
"We have found the IPS detection to be a very valuable feature of this solution. It is easy to use to stop policy violations."
"The solution is very powerful coupled with Firepower."
"We like the Cisco product, the concept, and the tech intelligence."
"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 like how NGIPS has everything in one console."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the filtering."
"Solid intrusion detection and prevention that scales easily in very large environments."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
"The solution is rather easy to use."
"Cisco technical support is unbeatable. It offers a premium service every time."
"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"It has a huge rate of protection. It's has a low level of positives and a huge rate of threat protection. It's easy to deploy and easy to implement. It has an incredible price rate compared to similar solutions."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
 

Cons

"Cisco Firepower was unusable for five years. Some people installed it and had many bad experiences with it, so they decided to buy something else."
"It is no longer scalable because it has gone end of life."
"The initial setup is a bit complex because it requires a lot of configuration, firewall and zoning."
"The SSL decrypt could be improved, but it's normal. All the devices in our platform need a lot of memory or CPU to do the SSL decrypt. This is an issue to improve in all platforms, not only in Cisco."
"Cisco can do better on their documentation because the product is really hard to understand."
"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."
"While the Management GUI and FMC could be improved, the devices themselves function well."
"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."
"While the alerts they offer are good, it could improve it in the sense that they should be more detailed to make the alerts more useful to us in general. Sometimes the solution will offer up false positives. Due to the fact that the alerts aren't detailed, we have to go dig around to see why is it being blocked. The solution would be infinitely better if there was just a bit more detail in the alert information and logging we receive."
"The pricing needs to be improved. We have lots of low-budget clients around us. Budget constraints are always a deterrent in our market."
"The main dashboard of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could improve."
"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
"I don't think this solution is a time-based control system, because one cannot filter traffic based on time."
"I would like to have analytics included in the suite."
"Integration with other components — even Cisco's own products — can be enhanced to improve administrative experience."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT can scale, but if you have too much, you could fill up your log files, which I consider when discussing scalability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing could be improved. Our customers have a yearly license."
"Licensing fees for this solution are $3,500 USD, and there are no additional costs."
"Pricing depends on negotiation with the vendor, although I can say that it is moderate."
"The weakness of Cisco Firepower is the cost. Some of the customers see it as very expensive."
"We pay for the IPS license to use this solution."
"The price for additional throughput is the highest in the industry."
"There are licensing fees depending on the features that you are using."
"Cisco products are not cheap and this solution is no different."
"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."
"If one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is cheap, I rate the tool's price as a five."
"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Performing Arts
7%
University
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco NGIPS?
The product's initial setup phase was easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco NGIPS?
Cisco is one of the top brands known for cost-effectiveness, making it worth the money. It's cheaper to integrate with existing IT security solutions compared to other expensive brands with subscri...
What needs improvement with Cisco NGIPS?
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 sometime...
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: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.