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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 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) 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

"I would rate this solution a 9 out of 10."
"Check Point IPS has impacted my organization positively because it provides good security, visibility, and low false positives, along with being easy to deploy and manage."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that the product's stability has been very good. The"
"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."
"It offers robust protection with features such as Next Generation firewall capabilities, mobile solutions, and proactive threat prevention."
"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 notifications are the most valuable feature of the solution."
"The solution is rather easy to use."
"The whole solution is very good, and stable."
"The solution is 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 product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"It is quite an intelligent product."
"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."
 

Cons

"The dashboard reports can be easier to generate and customize."
"There is a performance impact on the NGFW post-enabling the IPS blade/Module, which can even lead to downtime if IPS starts to monitor or block high-volume traffic."
"The cost is a bit high but it is worth it."
"For a smaller organization or smaller environment, the cost for Check Point IPS is a little bit high, so that can be made more budgetary for small organizations."
"Improvement suggestions include more attractive dashboards, enhanced visual analytics, and automated attack path correlation in SmartEvent to improve situational awareness."
"Signature tuning should be more user-friendly in the tool because, as per my experience, signature tuning is tough in Check Point IPS."
"I observed on our management that sometimes IPS does not connect to the threat cloud, we have to check and improve it. Otherwise, all of the features are good."
"We have a lot of false positives and the list of IPs are not up to date in terms of their location."
"The implementation could be a bit easier."
"The main dashboard of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could improve."
"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."
"I want to see a better dashboard for the product. The dashboard can be a bit modified or enhanced."
"I don't think this solution is a time-based control system, because one cannot filter traffic based on time."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT can scale, but if you have too much, you could fill up your log files, which I consider when discussing scalability."
"We are unhappy with technical support for this solution, and it is not as professional as what we typically expect from Cisco."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think that the price of support is around $40,000 USD or $50,000 USD per year."
"There is a license needed to use the Check Point IPS which is not expensive. However, the Check Point IPS device is expensive."
"I give the price of the solution a five out of ten."
"It is a reasonably priced product."
"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 price of this product should be reduced."
"The pricing model can be more competitive."
"Enabling IPS does not require any additional license purchase from OEM, as it comes by default with the NGFW bundle."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
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.
883,026 professionals have used our research since 2012.