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Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs Fortinet FortiWeb 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
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (14th)
Fortinet FortiWeb
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT and Fortinet FortiWeb aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is designed for Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) and holds a mindshare of 3.3%, down 3.9% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiWeb, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 8.2% mindshare, up 7.3% since last year.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

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.
Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is quite an intelligent product."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the filtering."
"The whole solution is very good, and stable."
"The solution can be integrated with some network electors like Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco ISE, and Active Directory to provide the client with authentication certificates."
"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 most valuable features of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT are the dashboard for monitoring events."
"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"The tool's most valuable feature is threat detection, which is important because we have multiple layers not only in Cisco."
"The AI-driven threat detection enhances protection capabilities, and the product is equipped with hardware acceleration, improving performance considerably."
"It can scale well."
"The ability to configure multiple policies for different requirements is a strong feature of Fortinet FortiWeb."
"FortiWeb offers machine learning in the latest product. This fixed many problems. There are no false negatives."
"The solution has a good sandbox feature."
"The deployment was very easy."
"The reason I recommend this product is because it guarantees that your network will be safe if it is set up properly and you fully utilize most of the functions."
"Auto Learn feature: Makes policy additions or deletions for my customers very simple​"
 

Cons

"I would like to have analytics included in the suite."
"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."
"The implementation could be a bit easier."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
"Performance needs improvement."
"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."
"They can introduce a scaled-down version for the SMB market. It would be very competitive in the environment."
"The solution is not very scalable, to scale up would require another deployment with a new appliance and a change to the network."
"The initial setup in our data center was somewhat complex."
"They could integrate some kind of machine learning and AI facilities to automate workflows."
"The dashboard evaluating the performance of each application connected to the web app's firewall is quite helpful, but the tool is only available in application performance management. So I think if Fortinet could better integrate that particular feature, it would add a lot of value to the product."
"Centralized management of multiple devices, and GUI improvement, could reduce the learning curve."
"Fortinet FortiWeb needs to improve the way it's configured. Common services like publishing exchange should be done in one click only."
"The dashboards are not that configurable. Application-specific dashboards can be improved. If we have 50 applications, there should be something to see what's happening with these 50 applications. There could be a graph or a consolidated alert page where all alerts are inbuilt. They have other products that I can use, but this feature should be built into FortiWeb."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"There are no licensing costs."
"The price of Fortinet FortiWeb is reasonable. This is one of the key factors of why we use this solution."
"It's an expensive solution, although there are no additional costs."
"The solution is a bit expensive when compared to other products."
"FortiWeb is more expensive than some competing products."
"The pricing is average; the product is neither particularly expensive nor affordable."
"Keep a loose margin between your actual bandwidth and the product sizing when using hardware appliances. Only virtual machines are upgradable to larger sizes."
"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the product price as three or four."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Educational Organization
41%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
 

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,...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
Fortinet FortiWeb is cost-effective compared to solutions like F5. It offers strong performance for the price, providing substantial value for our customers.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
The cloud-based security service of Fortinet FortiWeb could be enhanced to match the level of providers like Cloudflare ( /products/cloudflare-reviews ). Right now, it is more focused on on-prem so...
 

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
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Find out what your peers are saying about Darktrace, Check Point Software Technologies, Vectra AI and others in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS). Updated: April 2025.
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