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Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) vs Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Hillstone S-Series Network ...
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 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 Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System is 1.4%, up from 0.6% 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%
Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System1.4%
Other95.3%
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.
reviewer1080873 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Complements any firewall
The core processors are there and it's able to generate reports for that. It also complements any kind of firewall. For example, if an end user is using Palo Alto as a firewall, they'd need another layer of firewall like the S-Series that will protect internal servers. It's something that complements any firewall in the market.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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 security intelligence in the product is the best feature and give us all the information that we need in our network."
"The best thing about Cisco is their good marketing force; we appreciate doing business with Cisco all the time, and I'd love to sell and install Cisco switches and other things."
"The IPS functionality is useful if you have offices all over the place. It's nice to have centralized management instead of going to a separate ASA or FirePOWER device."
"The cost is the most valuable feature."
"Its ease of use and its ability to block and allow ports in and out of our organization are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its modularity, so whenever you need to upgrade or add another service, you don't need to buy another box."
"The malware detection, threat defense, sandboxing, VPN, and mail security have all been valuable features of Cisco NGIPS."
"Setup is straightforward with the same reliability and scalability as the firewall series."
"Setup is straightforward with the same reliability and scalability as the firewall series."
 

Cons

"Cisco can do better on their documentation because the product is really hard to understand."
"Our customers are still facing many bugs on the system. It has matured noticeably, but we are still facing multiple stability issues on Firepower."
"The inclusion of bandwidth management features would improve this product."
"The price could be improved."
"Customer support needs improvement."
"The SSL decrypt could be improved, but it's normal. All the devices in our platform need a lot of memory or CPU to do the SSL decrypt. This is an issue to improve in all platforms, not only in Cisco."
"We don't like its licensing model. It has separate licensing for all the features. For instance, to get URL filtering, you need to buy another license. Every feature set seems to require another license. Unless you purchase them all upfront, you find some surprises and realize that you can't do that because you need another license. Its logging isn't quite as good as it used to be in our previous solution. We used to have Cisco ASA, and we could view the logs a lot easier than NGIPS (also known as Firepower). We saw real-time logging, but we don't see that as much in Firepower."
"It is no longer scalable because it has gone end of life."
"Lack of tools to help educate end users"
"Lack of tools to help educate end users"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It could be less expensive."
"Cisco NGIPS is an expensive product."
"The solution is pricey, but worth it."
"Licenses for this product are available for either one, or three year terms."
"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 four out of 10."
"The annual licensing tends to be expensive, but in terms of implementing the licenses, it's a very uncomplicated process and as easy as copy-paste in its straightforwardness."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise27
No data available
 

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.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Sourcefire NGIPS, Firepower NGIPS
Hillstone S-Series NIPS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Electric Power, Huntington Bank, Keycorp, Nationwide, Transunion, Marriott, Inova Health, Ford, Thomson Reuters, Dow Chemical, Equifax, Chevron, Walmart, Coca Cola
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