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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 October 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is 3.3%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 2.9%, up from 2.6% 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 SNORT2.9%
Other93.8%
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 code is well-stabled right now and we've never had issues upgrading from one version to another."
"We like the Cisco product, the concept, and the tech intelligence."
"Cisco's technical support is very, very fast."
"It has increased our security posture and has contributed substantially to our security maturity by stopping threats."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco NGIPS is the centralized user interface."
"The solution very effectively provides malware protection and signature-based anomaly detection."
"It has helped to improve our cybersecurity and our network security posture."
"The URL filtering is very good and you can create a group for customized URLs."
"There are a lot of features that I really appreciate with Firepower, which is why I advise most of my customers to go with Firepower."
"It simplifies the configuration process by offering pre-defined base configurations, including security and connectivity settings."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT are the dashboard for monitoring events."
"The solution can be integrated with some network electors like Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco ISE, and Active Directory to provide the client with authentication certificates."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"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. For example, with AMP, now they call it Secure Endpoint and I don't know if in the next couple of years they're going to change it to something else. They should keep the names the same."
"The SSL decrypt could be improved, but it's normal."
"I would rate Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) six out of ten. The lack of automation and AI capabilities affects the rating."
"I'd like to see some cloud management."
"Overall, it lacks user-friendliness. It could be easier to manage. I can train any customer using FortiGate or Palo Alto in a few days, but with Cisco, it takes much more time because the systems aren't easy to use."
"Currently, this product is difficult to manage. It needs to be more user-friendly."
"I recommend it to other users, but I am concerned about stability, as the stability is not adequate."
"We don't like its licensing model. It has separate licensing for all the features."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"There are problems setting up VPNs for some regions."
"This solution needs to be more customizable."
"To be frank, the product is not really stable, although they're working on that."
"The price of this solution could be improved."
"I would like to have analytics included in the suite."
"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."
"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license required to use Cisco NGIPS and it can be a one or three-year license."
"Pricing depends on negotiation with the vendor, although I can say that it is moderate."
"The price of Cisco NGIPS could be reduced. It is more expensive than other solutions."
"The licensing can be billed annually or in multi-year contracts such as three, four, or five years."
"I usually work with Fortinet and FortiGate which is a lower cost in comparison with Cisco NGIPS."
"The solution is pricey, but worth it."
"I would rate the pricing 4 out of 5."
"The pricing could be improved. Our customers have a yearly license."
"If one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is cheap, I rate the tool's price as a five."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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 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: September 2026.
919,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.