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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
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
13th
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 July 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Check Point IPS is 3.4%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.0%, up from 2.6% 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 IPS3.4%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT3.0%
Other93.6%
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 integration of IPS with the firewall is quite efficient."
"Check Point IPS offers one of the best cybersecurity features to detect malicious signatures trying to infiltrate our cloud devices, which could pose a problem to our network, acting as a security prevention mechanism."
"Dome9 has paid for itself through the cost savings of additional headcount."
"I can generate reports for management automatically based on the threats of the last day/week/whatever is needed."
"We are able to define our own rules for detection."
"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."
"IPS logs enable complete visibility and reporting through the smart console."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that the product's stability has been very good. The"
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT are the dashboard for monitoring events."
"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."
"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."
"I like most of Cisco's features, like malware detection and URL filtering."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"Scalability is something that Cisco has always cared about."
 

Cons

"Out of the box, the number of built-in reporting and dashboards related to the IPS logs and events has room for improvement."
"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."
"Threat Prevention policies are not very easily manageable as there are several profiles/policies/etc. Therefore, there are several ways to add exceptions and check the configuration."
"Signature tuning should be more user-friendly in the tool because, as per my experience, signature tuning is tough in Check Point IPS."
"When entering, it always takes a long time to load."
"Support is the biggest area for improvement."
"So I don't think Check Point IPS is a great solution."
"I would like the product to provide us with intelligence to understand what we really have in our environment."
"I would like to have analytics included in the suite."
"The main dashboard of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could improve."
"The implementation could be a bit easier."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"I want to see a better dashboard for the product. The dashboard can be a bit modified or enhanced."
"The cloud can be improved."
"This is a good solution, but some others may have some advantages."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this product should be reduced."
"The pricing model can be more competitive."
"There is a license needed to use the Check Point IPS which is not expensive. However, the Check Point IPS device is expensive."
"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."
"Pricing for this solution is negotiable and I'm happy with our pricing."
"My company pays for the yearly licensing of Check Point IPS. It is a very expensive tool."
"The module has a considerable cost but you can save by purchasing a package with several modules instead of making a single purchase."
"We have a three-year license for this solution."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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 is your primary use case for Check Point IPS?
Check Point IPS is used as a security feature to prevent zero-day attacks and the execution of malicious files in our network. Check Point IPS is an Intrusion Prevention System that prevents malici...
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...
 

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: June 2026.
907,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.