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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)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Check Point IPS is 5.1%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.5%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

Ramesh KumarPonram - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great features like tunneling, hashing, and SSL
The area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required consist of support availability. The tool's complete operating system architecture is being designed in such a way that it looks a little complicated compared to the tool offered by its competitors. The tool's complete operating system architecture needs to be simplified for the users, especially from an administrative and troubleshooting perspective, so that it can be used quickly or with speed whenever there is a crisis. If the aforementioned areas are considered, the product will be much stronger. The tool's support is a major issue because it has not been quick in certain areas compared to the ones offered by Check Point's competitors. The product's scalability has certain shortcomings where improvements are required. The product should be able to handle and compete with competitors and their services as well as updates, which are much faster than Check Point.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Check Point IPS manages risk categories very well and accordingly helps us protect each of our devices in real-time."
"Among its great features is the ability to detect outgoing malware or extraction of compromised data and stop it, thus safeguarding us by isolating the network, the equipment, or the identity of the affected users."
"User-friendly and easy to implement."
"The autonomous threat prevention is very easy to use. The APIs and SmartConsole tool also work well."
"The most valuable feature of Check Point IPS is the management of devices and policies."
"We are able to define our own rules for detection."
"Check Point IPS is very easy to configure. It's part of Check Point's blade architecture, where firewall, VPN, and IPS configurations are identical, making the learning curve minimal. The feature can be enabled with a straightforward process, allowing default or customized configurations."
"Check Point is one of the best security brands worldwide."
"It simplifies the configuration process by offering pre-defined base configurations, including security and connectivity settings."
"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 tool's most valuable feature is threat detection, which is important because we have multiple layers not only in Cisco."
"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 most valuable feature is the visibility that we have across the virtual environment."
"The URL filtering is very good and you can create a group for customized URLs."
 

Cons

"The hardware-based version of Check Point IPS could be more scalable. Right now, it's not scalable."
"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."
"Check Point IPS' main problem is it is mostly software based. The performance is dependent on the CPU power, and the limited number of patterns."
"When entering, it always takes a long time to load."
"The area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required consist of support availability."
"Check Point IPS could be improved as the deployment is complex."
"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."
"Improvement suggestions include more attractive dashboards, enhanced visual analytics, and automated attack path correlation in SmartEvent to improve situational awareness."
"We are unhappy with technical support for this solution, and it is not as professional as what we typically expect from Cisco."
"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."
"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."
"Performance needs improvement."
"I want to see a better dashboard for the product. The dashboard can be a bit modified or enhanced."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"The pricing needs to be improved. We have lots of low-budget clients around us. Budget constraints are always a deterrent in our market."
"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
 

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 think that the price of support is around $40,000 USD or $50,000 USD per year."
"The tool's licensing model is good. The licensing costs are yearly. I rate it an eight out of ten."
"It is a reasonably priced product."
"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 module has a considerable cost but you can save by purchasing a package with several modules instead of making a single purchase."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Check Point IPS has been satisfactory.
What needs improvement with Check Point IPS?
An area of improvement for Check Point IPS would be simplified configuration and performance optimization. The initial setup and tuning can be complex, and more guided wizards or templates would he...
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,...
 

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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.