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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)
9th
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 March 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is 3.3%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.1%, up from 2.2% 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 SNORT3.1%
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

"Its ease of use and its ability to block and allow ports in and out of our organization are the most valuable features."
"You can do zero-day prevention and detection. It's quite useful."
"I have found the filter and the antivirus to be most valuable."
"We are satisfied with the technical support."
"I like the way the tool pushes the packets from the node level."
"In general, I have nothing negative to say about this product."
"The URL filtering feature and the new locations feature are both valuable additions to the solution."
"It has helped to improve our cybersecurity and our network security posture."
"It has a huge rate of protection, a low level of positives, is easy to deploy and implement, has an incredible price rate compared to similar solutions, and has a good support channel and technical assistance."
"If you compare it to other vendors, the technical support from Cisco is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility that we have across the virtual environment."
"The tool's most valuable feature is threat detection, which is important because we have multiple layers not only in Cisco."
"Solid intrusion detection and prevention that scales easily in very large environments."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"I would recommend this solution; it's reliable and scalable, with easy installation and integration."
"The whole solution is very good, and stable."
 

Cons

"The GUI could be improved. The pain point is really only focused toward the security engineer who configures it and the operation engineer who manages it."
"The solution would be better if it offered customers more integrations and more signatures."
"The pricing is very expensive. They should make their equipment more affordable."
"The solution should contain the sandbox features which we find in Check Point."
"The cost of adding additional throughput is very high and is an area of concern."
"The price of Cisco NGIPS could improve."
"Regarding additional features, they should speed up their technology to the market because, compared with other security vendors, Cisco is a little behind on the Gartner and technical front."
"The solution would be better if it offered customers more integrations and more signatures."
"I want to see a better dashboard for the product. The dashboard can be a bit modified or enhanced."
"The price of this solution could be improved."
"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
"I would like to have analytics included in the suite."
"The utopia is to see everything from one dashboard, but sometimes that's not very possible."
"While the alerts they offer are good, it could improve it in the sense that they should be more detailed to make the alerts more useful to us in general. Sometimes the solution will offer up false positives. Due to the fact that the alerts aren't detailed, we have to go dig around to see why is it being blocked. The solution would be infinitely better if there was just a bit more detail in the alert information and logging we receive."
"Performance needs improvement."
"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is pricey, but worth it."
"This is an expensive product, with the biggest cost being the license that keeps the service going."
"It could be less expensive."
"The pricing could be improved. Our customers have a yearly license."
"Cisco NGIPS is an expensive product."
"Licenses for this product are available for either one, or three year terms."
"We get cut in price since we use other Cisco products. We have the whole bundle of Cisco solutions."
"Cisco products are not cheap and this solution is no different."
"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
"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."
"We have a three-year license for this solution."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Educational Organization
8%
University
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
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 do you like most about Cisco Sourcefire SNORT?
The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet.
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...
 

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: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.