No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
69
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 April 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Check Point IPS is 3.7%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.1%, up from 2.3% 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 IPS3.7%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT3.1%
Other93.2%
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

"Overall, I would say that this is a decent product."
"Check Point IPS has positively impacted our organization by helping us secure our environment, leading to fewer complaints about security issues."
"I would rate this solution a 9 out of 10."
"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 solution helps our clients because once IPS is implemented, they don't have to worry about the security of their most critical infrastructure, and they can focus on their core business rather than the IT side of things."
"This is a very stable product."
"The Check Point IPS module allows me granularity in creating rules."
"Check Point IPS services give our organization peace of mind; we know that the solution will be running and constantly updated thanks to the integrated Check Point services."
"I would recommend this solution; it's reliable and scalable, with easy installation and integration."
"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"If you compare it to other vendors, the technical support from Cisco is excellent."
"The solution is rather easy to use."
"The tool's most valuable feature is threat detection, which is important because we have multiple layers not only in Cisco."
"There are a lot of features that I really appreciate with Firepower, which is why I advise most of my customers to go with Firepower."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
"I like most of Cisco's features, like malware detection and URL filtering."
 

Cons

"One area where Check Point IPS could be improved is the language in the support, as it is currently only available in English."
"The hardware-based version of Check Point IPS could be more scalable. Right now, it's not scalable."
"I would like to have the possibility of adding features to this IPS solution in the future."
"There are a lot of false positives. I would like to see integration with some kind of network detection and response in order to make some automation on IPS configuration."
"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."
"Sometimes protections are 'aggregated' into a single threat name when you look at the logs. I would prefer to see all protections named individually (for example, right now, 'web enforcement' is a category that contains several signatures)."
"Sometimes we had false positives where packages that were legitimate for us were blocked and we had to unblock them through exceptions."
"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."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"The initial setup is a little difficult compared to other products in the market. It depends on the environment. If we are doing any migration, it might take months in a brown-field environment."
"Performance needs improvement."
"The pricing needs to be improved."
"Performance needs improvement."
"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."
"There are some bugs in this solution and troubleshooting them is complicated."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think that the price of support is around $40,000 USD or $50,000 USD per year."
"I give the price of the solution a five out of ten."
"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."
"The pricing is quite reasonable."
"The tool's licensing model is good. The licensing costs are yearly. I rate it an eight out of ten."
"My company pays for the yearly licensing of Check Point IPS. It is a very expensive tool."
"The pricing model can be more competitive."
"We have a three-year license for this solution."
"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."
"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."
"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.
886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Security Firm
6%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business49
Midsize Enterprise23
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 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: April 2026.
886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.