Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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)
14th
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 March 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) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
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

"The tool's most valuable feature is its detection panel. Managing and updating policies within Check Point IPS is easy and without issues. It provides a secure network."
"Check Point Intrusion Prevention System has great profiles, and we can continuously create, modify, activate, deactivate or configure any specific setting to allow the profile to focus on just one thing or for certain attacks."
"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."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The best features Check Point IPS offers include finding threats hidden in encrypted data, which I find valuable."
"Real-time protection has blocked most threats that could affect system operations."
"It protects against specific known exploits but also, with SandBlast integration, it is able to protect against unknown or zero-day attacks at the perimeter level."
"Check Point is one of the best security brands worldwide."
"Cisco technical support is unbeatable. It offers a premium service every time."
"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"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."
"Solid intrusion detection and prevention that scales easily in very large environments."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility that we have across the virtual environment."
 

Cons

"We want the solution to continue to move towards cloud-based and portability focused for telecommuting users."
"The IPS inspection throughput goes high in older security gateways that have limited hardware resources, so that can be improved."
"I would like the product to provide us with intelligence to understand what we really have in our environment."
"The solution needs enhanced reporting. The reporting on Cisco Stealthwatch and Darktrace is much bigger. The visibility that they grant for the filtering capabilities over large infrastructures are far superior."
"The area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required consist of support availability."
"Check Point IPS can be more reasonably priced for small organizations; apart from this, everything looks perfect."
"Check Point IPS could be improved through adaptive policy tuning because its policies often require manual tuning to balance prevention protection and performance."
"Enhancements are necessary for the proficiency of notifications in the event of a Social Security incident, whether through email or alternative channels such as SMS."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT can scale, but if you have too much, you could fill up your log files, which I consider when discussing scalability."
"Performance needs improvement."
"There are problems setting up VPNs for some regions."
"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."
"Integration with other components — even Cisco's own products — can be enhanced to improve administrative experience."
"The cloud can be improved."
"I don't think this solution is a time-based control system, because one cannot filter traffic based on time."
"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for Check Point IPS is competitive and brings good value for the money."
"The price of this product should be reduced."
"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."
"I think that the price of support is around $40,000 USD or $50,000 USD per year."
"The pricing is quite reasonable."
"Enabling IPS does not require any additional license purchase from OEM, as it comes by default with the NGFW bundle."
"The module has a considerable cost but you can save by purchasing a package with several modules instead of making a single purchase."
"It is a reasonably priced product."
"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."
"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."
"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) solutions are best for your needs.
883,824 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Security Firm
7%
University
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
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: March 2026.
883,824 professionals have used our research since 2012.