No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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)
8th
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 June 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is 3.4%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.0%, up from 2.5% 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 SNORT3.0%
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 most valuable feature would be the IPS is very important in Cisco Firepower because I can configure deep configuration in IPS and tuning."
"Cisco NGIPS is working well overall with our current needs."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is that it is able to detect any form of infiltration."
"The traffic filter of this solution is very valuable to us, and to our clients."
"The most valuable features of Cisco NGIPS are the VPN, IPS, access policy management, EIM, and the ASA model as part of Firepower."
"The thing about this solution that I like the most is that it's intuitive."
"I am satisfied with Cisco's technical support, but I would rate it six out of ten."
"We primarily use this solution as an intrusion prevention system for external firewalls and deploy the solution on-premises."
"Users have access to intelligent security automation as one of the features, which can easily automate your event impact assessment so your IPS policy tuning can be done as well as your network behavior analysis, and you can do real-time contextual awareness with correlation of events created on your applications, user devices, operating systems, or vulnerabilities, with all of this real-time data captured including your apps and port scans."
"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."
"Solid intrusion detection and prevention that scales easily in very large environments."
"The whole solution is very good, and stable."
"The most valuable feature is reliability, and this solution is better than Check Point."
"With Cisco Sourcefire SNORT, we've been able to prevent and detect intrusion in our network and actually decrease our SLA (Service Level Agreement)."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"Cisco's stability issues have caused several of our customers to complain directly to the vendor, and if these issues persist into the future I will not be able to continue recommending Cisco NGIPS to our customers."
"The solution would be better if it offered customers more integrations and more signatures."
"The initial setup is a bit complex because it requires a lot of configuration, firewall and zoning."
"There are certain limitations that need to be addressed."
"I'd like to see some cloud management."
"I think that some initiation scripts might be helpful because they would make the configuration easier and more user-friendly for customers."
"The pricing is very expensive. They should make their equipment more affordable."
"Cisco NGIPS' performance could be better."
"With the next release, I would like to see some PBR, so that you can do the configuration with the features."
"To be frank, the product is not really stable, although they're working on that. Whenever I go to the technical community with an issue, they will usually say that it is not there yet, but the technical team are working on it. The issues are not insolvable. I think they should just keep working on the product to make sure that the product can become very stable. The technical support is great. I appreciate that. We have a lot of communities supporting Firepower now, so you can find help for whatever issue you have."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"This solution needs to be more customizable."
"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 price of this solution could be improved."
"The cloud can be improved."
"There are problems setting up VPNs for some regions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing can be billed annually or in multi-year contracts such as three, four, or five years."
"They are very expensive in some places and not reasonable at times for many customers. I have had customers choose another solution because of the high price."
"The pricing could be improved. Our customers have a yearly license."
"It is highly priced but competitive regarding features and support services."
"The solution is pricey, but worth it."
"We buy the licensing on a yearly basis, when we renew our contract. It is around $14,000."
"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."
"The price of Cisco NGIPS could be reduced. It is more expensive than other solutions."
"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."
"We have a three-year license for this solution."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) solutions are best for your needs.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
7%
 

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: June 2026.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.