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Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs Darktrace comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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 Sourcefire SNORT
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
14th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Darktrace
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (9th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), AI-Powered Chatbots (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (15th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (12th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (3rd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.3%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 19.5%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

Jack Poon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers ease of setup and good documentation
When it comes to the product's deployment phase, we have a lot of vendor support. We have a lot of skills here in Hong Kong. Our company doesn't find any problem deploying Cisco solutions. The solution is deployed on an on-premises version. Speaking about the time required to deploy the solution, I would say that we have quite a lot of previous experience with deploying Cisco products. We have our company's standard design document, which we need to follow. We have a standard testing procedure for all those features. We just take out some appropriate parts and then compile them into one document for an individual project. It is actually quite easy for us to do the documentation, so it just takes one or two hours, and we can do the implementation because all the materials and testing procedures are already in our company standard documents, so it is not that difficult for us.
Peter-Murphy - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables proactive threat detection and immediate response through AI monitoring
The most valuable feature of Darktrace is its ability to detect and counter threats before they occur. The autonomous response capability is always enabled, blocking threats immediately without hesitation. Additionally, the Darktrace email platform is a significant asset since it addresses incoming threats before they reach the network, enhancing our security measures. Protecting the business is essential, and ensuring security through 24/7 AI monitoring is invaluable.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a huge rate of protection. It's has a low level of positives and a huge rate of threat protection. It's easy to deploy and easy to implement. It has an incredible price rate compared to similar solutions."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT are the dashboard for monitoring events."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"It is quite an intelligent product."
"In general, the features are all great. However, if I need to take hardware for ASA, because they need to upgrade to Firepower, we want to create rules. For that, most of the time we go to the command line. Right now Firepower is working really hard on the grid. You can apply all those rules to the grid. Even if you want to monitor the logs, for example, the activity will tell you which particular user has been blocked because of that rule. Firepower's monitoring interface is very good, because you can see each and every piece. ASA also had it, but there you needed to type the command and be under the server to see all that stuff. In Firepower you have the possibility to go directly to the firewall. The way the monitoring is displayed is also very nice. The feature I appreciate most in Firepower is actually the grid. The grid has worked very well."
"Cisco technical support is unbeatable. It offers a premium service every time."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
"Darktrace is very useful for us because it has a large number of models for detecting threats."
"The Antigena feature is most valuable. Once it learns your environment, Antigena can step in and block a denial of service attack, a ransomware attack, or just about anything that doesn't belong in the environment. It can detect any type of attack that hits the environment because it understands what normal looks like for the network. It is very useful for an autonomous response."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of Darktrace and the most valuable feature is the artificial intelligence module because that is the tool that determines automatically if there is any risk or not in the network."
"I am impressed with the product's ability to give insights into network traffic."
"The scalability of Darktrace is very high."
"The product offers us a very good user interface and we've found the network visibility to be very good so far."
"Artificial intelligence and machine learning functionalities are valuable."
 

Cons

"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."
"I want to see a better dashboard for the product. The dashboard can be a bit modified or enhanced."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"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."
"We are unhappy with technical support for this solution, and it is not as professional as what we typically expect from Cisco."
"Performance needs improvement."
"I don't think this solution is a time-based control system, because one cannot filter traffic based on time."
"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."
"The price point for the product was too high for what our possible use case could be."
"In terms of improvements, fine-tuning is the area where we have to spend some time because it works on unsupervised machine learning. It would be good if they can improve their algorithm or technical functionality to reduce the fine-tuning effort. They can also come up with something at the endpoint level. So far, Darktrace has been a network detection response (NDR) solution. It does not offer much at the endpoint level or on user-client devices or servers. There should be more visibility at the endpoint level. It would be good to have the detection and response at the endpoint level by Darktrace. It should also have integration with an agile environment so that we can have continuous development and continuous integration in the application development environment. This is currently not there. It should also have internet-facing platform visibility, which is currently missing. They also need to improve the reporting and management dashboards. Currently, these are not so easy for a non-technical person. All these features would make Darktrace much better, and they would also be helpful in selling more solutions."
"It would be good if they can include some endpoint protection for remote workers. Nowadays, most people are working remotely. Therefore, they should include some type of sensors that can be installed on the endpoint in order to directly report the main usage and protect remotely. Phone protection will also be a great feature to add to Darktrace."
"There are still some issues with the network capturing or blocking traffic even after implementing exceptions."
"The dashboard and reporting for this solution could be improved as it is currently complex. The GUI for this solution could also be improved."
"I would like to see some additional enhancements."
"The level of tracking within the network from the transmission level up to the machine level can use improvement."
"I think there is some MSSP missing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price of the solution is not cheap. It is not a one-time purchase, there is a subscription that needs to be paid every one to five years depending on your choice. It is expensive but you can reduce the price by only using the services that you want."
"This solution is expensive."
"The price of Darktrace is high and could be reduced. We pay approximately $30,000 to $54,000 annually."
"They are too expensive compared with other vendors."
"We've budgeted about 50,000 Kuwaiti dinars for the solution. That is a yearly operating cost."
"If you consider the features and the cost of market leaders, we are satisfied with the pricing."
"It is inexpensive considering what it can do and the competition."
"The tool's pricing is costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Cisco offers the Cisco DNA Center, which is a source that provides crucial information for us to monitor performance, and see whether there is any trouble. We are using Cisco DNA center, but again,...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
What do you like most about Darktrace?
A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet traffic in real time.
 

Also Known As

Sourcefire SNORT
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs. Darktrace and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,959 professionals have used our research since 2012.