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Cisco IOS Security vs Corelight Open NDR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco IOS Security
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (41st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (17th)
Corelight Open NDR
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (4th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

Danijel Cerovecki - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Cyber Defense Department and Network Technologies Department at Verso Altima
Have faced challenges in keeping licensing clear and consistent while ensuring reliable network protection
We are a Gold Partner with Cisco. Our customers come from various industries, including service providers, and we target service providers and enterprise customers.We do not extensively use Zone-Based Firewalls in Cisco IOS Security, instead typically deploying standalone firewalls such as Cisco FTDs or Cisco ASA devices. For threat analytics and vulnerability scanning, we utilize third-party vendors with dedicated devices and software. We use products such as Tenable from Nessus for this type of analysis. We have implemented Secure Access Control Server in Cisco IOS Security, which combines multiple security mechanisms including AAA, 802.1X for network access control with Cisco ICE, TrustSec for identity-based segmentation, and Cisco DNA Center. Cisco IOS Security's VPN support is comprehensive and increasingly important in daily communication, from basic site-to-site tunnels to remote access VPNs and SD-WAN secure VPNs. Protecting and encrypting communication is essential in modern networks. The challenges with Cisco IOS Security are more operational than product-related. There is an understaffing issue, making automation and orchestration capabilities particularly valuable. For the products themselves, we only encounter routine operational matters such as addressing new vulnerabilities and patching. For those considering Cisco IOS Security, it is important to understand that Cisco offers a complete ecosystem. When embracing the Cisco ecosystem fully, customers receive excellent products and comprehensive solutions. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Cisco IOS Security a 9.
reviewer2834367 - PeerSpot reviewer
Growth And Strategy Lead at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Network visibility has transformed how we detect nation state threats and protect critical industry
Before Corelight recently started pushing some of the agentic features, querying at times could be a little difficult, depending on your mastery of log scale. However, I think with a lot of the artificial intelligence that they are building in, it is getting a lot easier to query in the platform. I would definitely encourage them to continue down that path where anybody can hop into the platform and start running queries, whether it is a simple instruction like I want this, and an artificial intelligence process can actually build the query and do it. I think that would be super powerful. Cyber skill sets are in high demand, and there is a huge backlog in cyber talent. We cannot fill all the positions we need. The easier we can make these cyber systems for people to pick up and be effective on, I think is really key. Explainability of data is hyper important. In the past few artificial intelligence related updates we have gotten from Corelight, that has been one of the first questions our team has asked every time or that I have asked: show me what the model is doing, show me how it came to this analysis. Within Investigator platform, they are able to walk through and see exactly what data the artificial intelligence pulled from where and why it did what it did as far as making its suggestions. They have definitely built their system with artificial intelligence in mind up front, and having that openness as one of the key features of any of their artificial intelligence and machine learning processes in the platform is important. The issue with black boxes is obviously hallucinations from artificial intelligence and just not being able to trace to ground truth. When we are talking about these cyber incidents and being able to do forensics, you need to be able to pinpoint and tie everything together, and black boxes really obscure that and prevent you from doing so. Corelight has done a really good job of making sure that everything is explainable and everything is mapped when it comes to leveraging any of their artificial intelligence features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability, and the nice thing with the bigger vendors is that they're very good at scale."
"Cisco technical support is the best in the world."
"Completely integrates branch offices with perimeter security."
"You can forget about it, it's going to work unless the hardware fails."
"Cisco is head-and-shoulders above all of the competition when it comes to technical support."
"IOS Security is more stable than competitors, and Cisco is more comprehensive in its approach."
"DMVPN as a technology, not necessarily for security, has allowed my customers to be more agile in their connectivity, without having to rely on a hub-and-spoke topology."
"Corelight is easy to use."
"Corelight makes much easier the remediation of cyber attacks; instead of facing a chaotic amount of logs, Corelight provides correlated metrics that allow pivoting to find, in seconds, all the data related to an alert, detection, or asset."
"Technical support seems to be good."
"Our company has seen massive improvements in cybersecurity position for our clients."
"It's an easy way for us to get visibility in a client's environment."
"It is easy to deploy and easy to handle."
"The most valuable feature is the embedded IDS from Suricata."
"It's easy to create additional dashboards specific to supporting specific tasks."
 

Cons

"Cisco IOS Security could improve its security features. There are competitors that have some additional security features, such as Fortinet FortiGate. Additionally, there should be better synchronization with Cisco IOS Security and other vendors, and improved AI features would be beneficial."
"Cisco changes their licensing policy quite frequently, which is becoming confusing and complicated."
"The whole process can be complex."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see support for the 100BT and 7000 models."
"I would like to see much more embedded security that works and that isn't a bolt-on."
"The solution's costs are quite high. It's a turn-off in terms of actually using it."
"We need to pay for the license and it is expensive."
"Most of their features are meant for Cisco. You cannot integrate them with any other vendor."
"Machine learning could be a good improvement, but it's very costly."
"Before Corelight recently started pushing some of the agentic features, querying at times could be a little difficult, depending on your mastery of log scale."
"The solution’s architecture is complex and difficult to understand. There are multiple machines and VMs."
"They can enhance the interface of the product. They can make it more interactive and also easier to use for feature access."
"Corelight hasn’t added features in a long time."
"In the next release, building a graphical user interface would be helpful."
"It's an expensive solution and the price could be reduced."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We can purchase its licenses as per specific business requirements."
"The solution's pricing is very good."
"The pricing is average and includes all features with support."
"The product is expensive."
"We need to pay for the license and it is expensive."
"You can get a better price if you commit to a longer-term license. Three years, five years, or even seven or ten years will be cheaper than a three-month or one-year term."
"The licenses for this solution are expensive."
"The tool could be priced lower. If you want advanced services, then you need to purchase them."
"It's a yearly fee and depends on what you are looking for."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco IOS Security?
The cost of Cisco IOS Security for customers is on the higher end of pricing compared to the competition, depending on the targeted customers.This can be a major issue as enterprise customers are o...
What needs improvement with Cisco IOS Security?
Regarding improvements in Cisco IOS Security, what consistently confuses me is the inability of Cisco to maintain a clear licensing policy.This is an issue that I have observed for years now. Cisco...
What is your primary use case for Cisco IOS Security?
The main use cases for Cisco IOS Security include elementary device hardening, access control, control-plane policing, AAA (Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting), network security, Layer 2...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Corelight?
I have a fortunate experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Corelight Open NDR, as being a principal architect, I get to sit outside of that conversation and just choose the best prod...
What needs improvement with Corelight?
Corelight Open NDR does not need any improvements or additional features in the next releases. The product is excellent at what it does, and I believe what they have done with it, taking an open-so...
What is your primary use case for Corelight?
I have been using Corelight Open NDR solution for approximately three years. I leverage the Suricata engine heavily for alerting on indicators of compromise as my main use case for this solution.
 

Also Known As

IOS Security
Corelight Open NDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Arup Group, Brunel University London, City of Biel, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, K&L Gates , New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Offshore Northern Seas, Transplace
CarrefourEdnonGrand Canyon EducationSektorCERTTietoevryVolkswagen Financial Services
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco IOS Security vs. Corelight Open NDR and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.