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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

"The solution is stable. This is one of the good things in Firepower. Especially if we use ESE with it."
"The traffic filter of this solution is very valuable to us, and to our clients."
"Cisco's technical support is very, very fast."
"We are looking for cybersecurity threats, like Pinterest and this solution has a good IPS feature as well as its VirtualBox which helps us to save time for our daily routine tasks or issues."
"The solution is good at scaling."
"I've found the performance and stability to be the most valuable features of Cisco NGIPS. It is scalable as well."
"The code is well-stabled right now and we've never had issues upgrading from one version to another."
"The most valuable feature is its IPS ability. You are able to balance security and connectivity."
"With Cisco Sourcefire SNORT, we've been able to prevent and detect intrusion in our network and actually decrease our SLA (Service Level Agreement)."
"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."
"If you compare it to other vendors, the technical support from Cisco is excellent."
"The solution is stable."
"It simplifies the configuration process by offering pre-defined base configurations, including security and connectivity settings."
"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 most valuable feature is reliability, and this solution is better than Check Point."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"The configuration of this product can be simplified."
"Currently, this product is difficult to manage. It needs to be more user-friendly."
"I would like to see better integration with SIEMs."
"The price could be improved."
"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 onboarding process could be made a little bit better."
"Our customers are still facing many bugs on the system. It has matured noticeably, but we are still facing multiple stability issues on Firepower. There are more than 80 or 90 bugs for each release node. It's a considerable number of bugs."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"Performance needs improvement."
"The implementation could be a bit easier."
"To be frank, the product is not really stable, although they're working on that."
"The customization of the rules can be simplified."
"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."
"With the next release, I would like to see some PBR, so that you can do the configuration with the features."
"Integration with other components — even Cisco's own products — can be enhanced to improve administrative experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I usually work with Fortinet and FortiGate which is a lower cost in comparison with Cisco NGIPS."
"Pricing depends on negotiation with the vendor, although I can say that it is moderate."
"The licensing can be billed annually or in multi-year contracts such as three, four, or five years."
"The weakness of Cisco Firepower is the cost. Some of the customers see it as very expensive."
"The cost of the license depends on the level of support that you have with Cisco."
"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."
"There is a license required to use Cisco NGIPS and it can be a one or three-year license."
"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."
"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.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.