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Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs ExtraHop Reveal(x) 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 Sourcefire SNORT
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (12th)
ExtraHop Reveal(x)
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (7th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is designed for Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) and holds a mindshare of 3.0%, up 2.6% compared to last year.
ExtraHop Reveal(x), on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 6.5% mindshare, down 15.1% since last year.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT3.0%
Darktrace10.1%
Fortinet FortiGate8.5%
Other78.4%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ExtraHop Reveal(x)6.5%
Darktrace15.4%
Cisco Secure Network Analytics8.6%
Other69.5%
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Henri Heuvel - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at Axians
Cloud-based administration streamlines network security management
ExtraHop Reveal(x) can improve regarding integration capabilities. For instance, the market is getting really flooded with Microsoft Sentinel, and I know there is an integration possible, but the tools on the market right now indicate that integration should not be a skill from an integrator point of view. It should be quite easy for customers to integrate that solution into SOCs, SIEMs, or any other integration with other tools. There are various integrations from which there's a manual on how to do it, but specifically, the Microsoft portfolio, particularly Sentinel, integration is not yet there. If you score them on a scale of one to ten, ExtraHop scores around a 7.5 to an 8 on an integration basis, but there's actually room for improvement on that side. In the older days, ExtraHop had a license model where you could do all you can eat, so if you had a sensor with 10 gig of capacity, you could use all the entire 10 gig of throughput. They changed that to an asset-based license model, and that's an absolute downside of the solution, where it is harder for smaller companies to acquire the solution itself. That has given us quite some problems in positioning the solution properly within the network, so the licensing model is an absolute downside where they need to improve.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is threat detection, which is important because we have multiple layers not only in Cisco."
"I like most of Cisco's features, like malware detection and URL filtering."
"The solution can be integrated with some network electors like Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco ISE, and Active Directory to provide the client with authentication certificates."
"The solution is rather easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility that we have across the virtual environment."
"It simplifies the configuration process by offering pre-defined base configurations, including security and connectivity settings."
"I would recommend this solution; it's reliable and scalable, with easy installation and integration."
"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."
"ExtraHop Reveal(x) is one of the tools that works out of the box when it comes to threat hunting."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"Reveal(x)'s stability is excellent."
"The solution offers a friendly GUI for security features."
"Reveal X integrates seamlessly with CrowdStrike. If you see something sketchy on the network, you can quarantine devices through ExtraHop and it'll push to the CrowdStrike server."
"We had useful information within the hour of deployment. The ability to trace back for historical analysis, as well as the behavioral analysis done with the security information, puts the user in a position to make an informed decision to mitigate the performance or security incidents. Regarding the security incidents, Reveal (x) is able to create incident cards that guide your teams through the incidents and gives you the option to delve into the transaction detail to potentially view payloads as well."
"We had useful information within the hour of deployment."
"The solution works well for sending sensors."
 

Cons

"The customization of the rules can be simplified."
"There are some bugs in this solution and troubleshooting them is complicated."
"A lot of Cisco equipment is very good, but in judging the model of this solution that we have, I feel that it is the worst."
"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."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT can scale, but if you have too much, you could fill up your log files, which I consider when discussing scalability."
"I would like to have analytics included in the suite."
"We are unhappy with technical support for this solution, and it is not as professional as what we typically expect from Cisco."
"To be frank, the product is not really stable, although they're working on that."
"Netflow - Processing Netflow can be cumbersome as it requires triggers to truly gain value and insight. This in turn can add a bit of load to the hardware. The focus of ExtraHop Reveal (x) is live packet data."
"Currently, we have to check manually as we do not receive any notifications about new patches, maintenance, or firmware releases."
"Setting up ExtraHop is complex because we needed a nuanced understanding of the data flows into our data center."
"I would like to see more cloud capability."
"I think the tuning capabilities could be improved. We're working on minimizing false positives. Apart from that, everything seems fine to me."
"ExtraHop Reveal(x) could improve by allowing a longer look back in the feature. Right now you have a limit of 30 days to look back on your activity. I've used Darktrace before, and they allow you the ability to play back events. This would be a good feature to have in ExtraHop Reveal(x)."
"I would like to see improvements in areas where events are getting dropped; we're not able to view complete insights."
"They changed that to an asset-based license model, and that's an absolute downside of the solution, where it is harder for smaller companies to acquire the solution itself."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
"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."
"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
"I would rate the price a three out of five. It could be less expensive."
"I rate ExtraHop Reveal(x) six out of 10 for affordability. We pay for an annual license. It's always one of those trade-offs. You get a lot of value, but ExtraHop isn't exorbitantly priced. You can pay extra for additional features like the ability to decode HL7 traffic, which is crucial for EMR environments."
"I rate the price of ExtraHop Reveal(x) a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"The solution is based on an annual subscription model and is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We just did an assessment for our 47 datacenters around North America. The top two enterprise-level network monitoring solutions were ExtraHop first, Riverbed SteelCenter second. Their negotiated c...
What open source tool can one use to measure bandwidth from one's upstream service provider?
One I am looking closely at is AppNeta. They have an appliance that can digest the flow and do a better job than Netflow. The other one we are using is ExtraHop. This has both a Datacenter Hig...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ExtraHop Reveal(x)?
We manage the setup cost ourselves, so I am quite happy with that. I also had engagement with professional services from ExtraHop, and it wasn't bad, but I was not impressed; it's not academic work...
 

Also Known As

Sourcefire SNORT
Reveal(x), Revealx
 

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
Wood County Hospital
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