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Check Point IPS vs Cisco Sourcefire SNORT comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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

Check Point IPS
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Check Point IPS is 4.1%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.1%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Check Point IPS4.1%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT3.1%
Other92.8%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

GR
Support at a security firm with 51-200 employees
Real-Time Blocking Improves Response and Reduces Manual Logs
The best feature in my experience with Check Point IPS is the real-time prevention because it uses thousands of preventive protections based on both known exploit signatures and behavioral analysis to detect and block threats before they reach vulnerable systems. I find the behavioral analysis feature of Check Point IPS to be a most valuable feature because it can detect sophisticated threats that do not match known signatures. For example, when I need to view anomaly detections, instead of relying solely on known attack patterns, Check Point IPS monitors network traffic for unusual behavior such as unexpected protocol use, abnormal data flows, or suspicious command sequences. Check Point IPS impacts my organization positively because it has had a strong positive impact by strengthening our network defense, reducing manual work, and improving our incident response times.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There's less admin burden to detect these threats as Check Point IPS will do it all for you and suggest the best preventive actions to protect the network."
"Check Point IPS is a good feature that provides excellent signature-based threat prevention and helps us protect our private network from outside threats."
"IPS signatures can be set quite granularly depending on your environment. You can filter on performance impact, severity, and confidence which makes sizing and adapting easier."
"The reports are well written so that you can understand what type of attack has occurred, the originating IP address, and other details."
"This is a very stable product."
"The best feature in my experience with Check Point IPS is the real-time prevention because it uses thousands of preventive protections based on both known exploit signatures and behavioral analysis to detect and block threats before they reach vulnerable systems."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is called tunneling. Tunneling is one of the major security features that hackers cannot penetrate through."
"The threat database and integration help me in my day-to-day work with the Check Point ThreatCloud and behavior engine, as the solution effectively detects zero-day and encrypted traffic threats."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"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."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"What I would like to improve in IPS would be the capacity of the hardware. I would also like to be able to sort signatures by severity. This would greatly impact how well I can manage my environment."
"After the R80 release, there are almost all feature sets available under IPS Configuration. However, further to this, adding a direct vulnerability scan based on ports and protocol for every zone (LAN, DMZ, or Outside) will make Check Point very different compared to other vendors on the market."
"Check Point IPS can be improved by addressing false positive and tuning overhead."
"It would be good to update the public documentation of Check Point so that we can generate improvements and best practices based on the documentation."
"Check Point IPS could be improved through adaptive policy tuning because its policies often require manual tuning to balance prevention protection and performance."
"At least 60% of all the alarms generated by the IPS are false positives or something that's not important to look at, and this generates a significant workload for my team."
"It is generally good, but improving the performance would be the one thing I'd take a look at right now."
"Sometimes Check Point documentation is not always updated, which is why when some implementations change, it generates confusion about details."
"I don't think this solution is a time-based control system, because one cannot filter traffic based on time."
"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."
"Integration with other components — even Cisco's own products — can be enhanced to improve administrative experience."
"The main dashboard of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could improve."
"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT can scale, but if you have too much, you could fill up your log files, which I consider when discussing scalability."
"The cloud can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license needed to use the Check Point IPS which is not expensive. However, the Check Point IPS device is expensive."
"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is very cheap and ten means it is very expensive. The product is expensive."
"The tool's licensing model is good. The licensing costs are yearly. I rate it an eight out of ten."
"The pricing model can be more competitive."
"Pricing for this solution is negotiable and I'm happy with our pricing."
"Enabling IPS does not require any additional license purchase from OEM, as it comes by default with the NGFW bundle."
"You can pay for Check Point IPS yearly, or you can go with a three-year license. There's no extra cost apart from the standard licensing fee."
"The module has a considerable cost but you can save by purchasing a package with several modules instead of making a single purchase."
"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 cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
"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."
"We have a three-year license for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Check Point IPS?
The most valuable feature of the solution is called tunneling. Tunneling is one of the major security features that hackers cannot penetrate through.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point IPS?
I have saved around two or three hours a week since I started using Check Point IPS. My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Check Point IPS is great, and I have no problem with t...
What needs improvement with Check Point IPS?
Check Point IPS is working well for our organization. In the future, more automated and more AI-based intelligence could be fed into Check Point IPS, and that would be helpful for us.
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?
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...
 

Also Known As

Check Point Intrusion Prevention System
Sourcefire SNORT
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Morton Salt, Medical Advocacy and Outreach, BH Telecom, Lightbeam Health Solutions, X by Orange, Cadence, Nihondentsu, Datastream Connexion, Good Sam, Omnyway, FIASA, Pacific Life, Banco del Pacifico, Control Southern, Xero, Centrify
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point IPS vs. Cisco Sourcefire SNORT and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
883,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.