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

Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) vs Cisco Sourcefire SNORT comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

"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."
"Technical support is quite good. With firewalls, the last cases I had with Cisco were professionally handled quite quickly and it was great."
"In the virtual deployment, you have a couple of choices depending on your needs and how much bandwidth you have that needs to be inspected."
"The most valuable features of Cisco NGIPS are protection and reporting."
"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."
"The most valuable feature would be the IPS is very important in Cisco Firepower because I can configure deep configuration in IPS and tuning."
"From a cybersecurity past perspective, it has aligned the features in accordance with our strategic needs."
"The solution is very powerful coupled with Firepower."
"The solution can be integrated with some network electors like Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco ISE, and Active Directory to provide the client with authentication certificates."
"It simplifies the configuration process by offering pre-defined base configurations, including security and connectivity settings."
"It is quite an intelligent product."
"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility that we have across the virtual environment."
"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."
"I would recommend this solution; it's reliable and scalable, with easy installation and integration."
"The most valuable feature is reliability, and this solution is better than Check Point."
 

Cons

"The solution requires better management. When it comes to central management capabilities, improvements can be made."
"The biggest problem with most Cisco products is that the interface is lagging behind the competition. The user interface could be updated and improved."
"The aspect of private party integration solutions could be improved."
"Rating the technical support from one to five (where five is high), I would rate them as a two. I find them to be very bad."
"I would recommend this solution to others for medium, large, and enterprise businesses only."
"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."
"We have a separate management controller for Cisco NGIPS. If they have not done it already they should integrate Cisco NGIPS with the Cloud Portal."
"Because of cybersecurity threats, other security features should be available in Cisco devices."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT can scale, but if you have too much, you could fill up your log files, which I consider when discussing scalability."
"The utopia is to see everything from one dashboard, but sometimes that's not very possible."
"The cloud can be improved."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"The initial setup is a little difficult compared to other products in the market. It depends on the environment. If we are doing any migration, it might take months in a brown-field environment."
"The customization of the rules can be simplified."
"I don't think this solution is a time-based control system, because one cannot filter traffic based on time."
"The price of this solution could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco products are not cheap and this solution is no different."
"I usually work with Fortinet and FortiGate which is a lower cost in comparison with Cisco NGIPS."
"This is an expensive product, with the biggest cost being the license that keeps the service going."
"The price for additional throughput is the highest in the industry."
"It is expensive. It has separate licensing for all the features, and every feature set seems to require another license. Licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs besides the standard licensing fee."
"I would rate the pricing four out of 10."
"It is highly priced but competitive regarding features and support services."
"It could be less expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) solutions are best for your needs.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Educational Organization
7%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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: September 2026.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.