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Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs Trend Micro Deep Discovery [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 26, 2026

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) (14th)
Trend Micro Deep Discovery ...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
reviewer2266119 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Has improved email security through advanced filtration and timely threat detection
I work with Trend Micro Apex One. I have used the Deep Discovery's Sandbox analysis feature, and we utilize another appliance known as Deep Discovery Analyzer, abbreviated as DDA. This tool makes analysis for URLs and attachments contained in inbound emails, so whenever we receive an email with a URL or attachment, it will be analyzed by Trend Micro Deep Discovery Analyzer. In evaluating Deep Discovery's real-time visibility on network traffic, it is important to note that we applied our Deep Discovery Analyzer for Trend Micro to conduct sandboxing specifically for email channels only, and we do not utilize it for network channels. For network channel sandboxing, we use a solution called FortiAnalyzer, which belongs to another team called network security. I assess Deep Discovery's effectiveness in identifying sophisticated attack patterns by looking at how it handles high traffic loads, and how effectively it can use its instances and images to analyze numerous URLs and attachments simultaneously. Additionally, I evaluate its ability to maintain round-robin or load balancing across different analyses without leaving samples queued for analysis. The performance is critical when the product updates for signatures are up-to-date, as this aids in the detection and classification of URLs and attachments without delay in the analysis process. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Trend Micro Deep Discovery a nine.

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."
"Cisco technical support is unbeatable. It offers a premium service every time."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT are the dashboard for monitoring events."
"There are a lot of features that I really appreciate with Firepower, which is why I advise most of my customers to go with Firepower."
"This solution makes life a lot easier as there are fewer man-hours required and we no longer need too many resources to manage it."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"We primarily use this solution as an intrusion prevention system for external firewalls and deploy the solution on-premises."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"The most valuable features are monitoring for advanced persistent threats, the system runs in a sandbox allowing for effective zero-day exploits management, and the Inspector has a built-in sandbox."
"Trend Micro Deep Discovery is a very specific product for threat intelligence with smart protection."
"As a security product, managing threats is crucial for my clients."
"The most valuable features are monitoring for advanced persistent threats, the system runs in a sandbox allowing for effective zero-day exploits management, and the Inspector has a built-in sandbox."
"One of the most valuable features is the performance, since, so far, we have not faced any issues with Deep Discovery."
"The tool's stability and performance are good."
"Fire Eye is incredibly expensive, and requires multiple appliances which together, scan far less protocols than DDi."
"The reporting is very good, providing detailed analysis in a short amount of time."
 

Cons

"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
"Sometimes the solution will offer up false positives."
"I would like to have analytics included in the suite."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT can scale, but if you have too much, you could fill up your log files, which I consider when discussing scalability."
"To be frank, the product is not really stable, although they're working on that."
"I want to see a better dashboard for the product. The dashboard can be a bit modified or enhanced."
"Performance needs improvement."
"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."
"All issues we faced related to false positives regarding many hashes and URLs specifically for mail gateway and sandboxing, which led us to open a threat ticket with Trend Micro support for validation."
"Deep Discovery is easy to manage, but there is still room for improvement on the administration and operations side. Competing products have a cleaner interface that makes it easier to manage their products. Trend Micro offers a lot of features in one product suite, but it can be unwieldy for the customer to manage all that with a single interface."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The main issue is its high cost."
"The stability of the solution could be improved. It should be 100% stable, but it's not there right now."
"The scalability is sometimes limited."
"Sometimes there needs to be a stability test done. We did tests and checked up to around 20 or 25 samples; out of those tests, two missed and were later detected on the endpoint, so it is not completely stable and it misses things."
"I would like to see them create a rule where it could integrate with the network and start mitigating with auto-detection."
 

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."
"If one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is cheap, I rate the tool's price as a five."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
"Compared to its competitors, Trend Micro Deep Discovery is a little expensive."
"The price of the solution is lower compared to the competition."
"The licensing cost is a bit pricey. We pay a yearly subscription."
"Its price is fine, but Trend Micro can improve the pricing in general. It is a hardware solution. It is based on the number of nodes, and according to the number of nodes, clients decide which box they should acquire. They have to renew their license every year. It is subscription-based."
"Overall, the price is good."
"The pricing is okay for some, and sometimes, some people find it expensive."
"Overall, Trend Micro Deep Discovery has proven to be a reliable solution that enhances our security posture while minimizing operational disruptions."
"Trend Micro Deep Discovery is quite expensive compared to other endpoint security products."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
9%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise10
 

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 do you like most about Trend Micro Deep Discovery?
The tool's most valuable feature is its collaboration with other products. Integrating with other security products was simple and easy.
What needs improvement with Trend Micro Deep Discovery?
Server Protect is not commonly used. When considering the Sandbox feature, it only inspects small files, and not all types of files are supported. The solution is very expensive. The solution is no...
 

Also Known As

Sourcefire SNORT
Trend Micro Deep Discovery Inspector, Trend Micro Deep Discovery Analyzer
 

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
Allied Telesis, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Babou, Blekinge County Council, Delacour, Hiroshima Prefectural Government, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., Mazda Motor Logistics Europe, McGill University Health Centre, Mikuni Corporation, OKWAVE, Sinar Mas Land, SWICA, UTOC Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Darktrace, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS). Updated: May 2026.
894,998 professionals have used our research since 2012.