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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)
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 August 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is 3.4%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.0%, 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)3.4%
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

"Cisco has many products that are easily integrated with other services."
"The features that I find most valuable are the DDoS protection, IPS/IDS, and Firepower for web application filtering."
"This is a stable solution."
"The most valuable features of Cisco NGIPS are the VPN, IPS, access policy management, EIM, and the ASA model as part of Firepower."
"It is more or less stable. Sometimes I have some issues normally when we need to upgrade it to newer versions. I think it does the job."
"Technical support is quite good. With firewalls, the last cases I had with Cisco were professionally handled quite quickly and it was great."
"Among all the different solutions I have worked with, such as Palo Alto many other firewalls, Cisco has the support, documentation, and design, and the documentation is widely available and it can help you a lot with implementation, making the implementation much easier."
"You can trust it because of the originality score and with what we've used so far too, I see the difference in the old version and this new one."
"Cisco technical support is unbeatable. It offers a premium service every time."
"The solution can be integrated with some network electors like Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco ISE, and Active Directory to provide the client with authentication certificates."
"The solution is stable."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is reliability, and this solution is better than Check Point."
"It simplifies the configuration process by offering pre-defined base configurations, including security and connectivity settings."
"We primarily use this solution as an intrusion prevention system for external firewalls and deploy the solution on-premises."
 

Cons

"The price could be improved."
"Customer support needs improvement."
"I would rate Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) six out of ten. The lack of automation and AI capabilities affects the rating."
"The price of Cisco NGIPS could improve."
"Currently, this product is difficult to manage. It needs to be more user-friendly."
"I don't recommend Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) unless the network infrastructure is predominantly Cisco."
"The integration can be more secure."
"The user interface needs some improvement, it is a little rudimentary and not very intuitive."
"There are some bugs in this solution and troubleshooting them is complicated."
"Sometimes the solution will offer up false positives."
"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."
"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."
"With the next release, I would like to see some PBR, so that you can do the configuration with the features."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"The customization of the rules can be simplified."
"The pricing needs to be improved. We have lots of low-budget clients around us. Budget constraints are always a deterrent in our market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In our company, we know that the price of Cisco products is high, especially for its switches, routers and IOS. The price of Cisco products may be twice its original price if you plan to extend some of its features."
"We get cut in price since we use other Cisco products. We have the whole bundle of Cisco solutions."
"This is an expensive product, with the biggest cost being the license that keeps the service going."
"The licensing can be billed annually or in multi-year contracts such as three, four, or five years."
"I would rate the pricing 4 out of 5."
"We buy the licensing on a yearly basis, when we renew our contract. It is around $14,000."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"Licenses for this product are available for either one, or three year terms."
"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."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
"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%
Educational Organization
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise27
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.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.