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Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics [EOL] vs Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) comparison

 

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 Secure Cloud Analytic...
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS)
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

SP
Security Analyst at Orange España
Efficiently generates alerts for suspicious activities and scales easily
There are two areas of improvement. Firstly, extend the log retrieval limit to at least three months. For example, there is a limit on the number of log messages that can be received. So, I would like to expand the log retrieval limit. And another thing, if we migrate these things to an event or send us an email if there is any critical event, I would like to configure these things on the initial launch. Because if a system is compromised, there will be a lot of data movement from one post to another post to the outside. Then, we should also get an alert on email as well. We have since we have integrated these things. But a direct email for critical alerts should be there. So, I would like to enhance the critical event configuration. If a new user wants to learn how it should work, how policies work, and where we can configure policies, there should be some learning material for this product.
reviewer373227 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Marketing strengths shine but regaining user trust needs significant effort
There are numerous things that could be improved about Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) to get it back on track. Sollution for small branches: when we have to connect a lot very small branches (or sometimes only an ATM) we need something small, with LTE and with reasonable price. Cisco response is SDWAN but it is not always the case. Recently Cisco released some small firewalls but I have not tried them yet. Central management with FMC is a very good idea, but sometimes local management or monitoring is helpfull. With Cisco You have to decide: central or local. You cannot have both. Regarding usability, when you commit configuration on Cisco, it sometimes takes very long. Commits also take some time for the competition, but Cisco is definitely lagging behind the rest in this respect. Last but not least, for me as a professional is lack of CLI. With CLI, I can configure every firewall on the market except Cisco. CLI is very important in professional working, and IMHO it was an unwise decision by Cisco to remove it. Graphical interfaces are very nice, but when you've got thousands of objects in a big installation and have to configure many things, CLI is a much faster way to do it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Monitoring the traffic, making sure you have the visibility."
"I would recommend Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud 100 percent."
"My advice to others is Cisco has great solutions and I would recommend them."
"It tells you if there is any communication going to command and control servers, or if there is any traffic that violates your internal policy, or if any data hoarding is happening where data is being dumped from your machine to outside of the environment. It provides all such meaningful reports to help you understand what's happening."
"When it comes to scalability, there's no size limit. It varies based on licenses and requirements."
"Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud is scalable because it is on the cloud."
"The product helps me to see malware."
"The logs in Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud are very good when doing the API integration in the team. It is able to give you important information for the correlations."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco NGIPS is its protection."
"In general, I have nothing negative to say about this product."
"Ir's signature-based. We are also using the anomaly baseline formation, where it links the network, then anything that goes away from the norm is also flagged. Those are the two most valuable features."
"I like Firepower's automation, and the security intelligence is a powerful feature."
"The thing about this solution that I like the most is that it's intuitive."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its modularity, so whenever you need to upgrade or add another service, you don't need to buy another box."
"I would say it's a good product if you look at the primary functionality, which is intrusion prevention."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco NGIPS is the centralized user interface."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is a bit complex in terms of deployment and configuration."
"The product needs to improve its user-friendliness. It is very tricky and you need to study it before using the standard functionalities."
"The product's price is high."
"Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud could improve the graphical user interface. It could be a more user-friendly graphical user interface. so that. Not everybody's a cyber security professional, most of the customers that I deal with are not very skilled. The terms that they use in the solution are quite understandable for a normal CIO."
"If we migrate these things to an event or send us an email if there is any critical event, I would like to configure these things on the initial launch. Because if a system is compromised, there will be a lot of data movement from one post to another post to the outside. Then, we should also get an alert on email as well. We have since we have integrated these things. But a direct email for critical alerts should be there. So, I would like to enhance the critical event configuration."
"Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud could improve the graphical user interface. It could be a more user-friendly graphical user interface."
"The initial setup of Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud is complex."
"When I used to work on it, I just didn't see anything new happening for about a year and a half. Providing newer data and newer reports constantly would help. There should be more classifications and more interesting data."
"We don't like its licensing model. It has separate licensing for all the features. For instance, to get URL filtering, you need to buy another license. Every feature set seems to require another license. Unless you purchase them all upfront, you find some surprises and realize that you can't do that because you need another license. Its logging isn't quite as good as it used to be in our previous solution. We used to have Cisco ASA, and we could view the logs a lot easier than NGIPS (also known as Firepower). We saw real-time logging, but we don't see that as much in Firepower."
"The onboarding process could be made a little bit better."
"The time it takes for the product to mature, the maturity journey, the product maturity cycle, takes too long."
"We would like an option to search through the logs to be added to this solution."
"The user interface needs some improvement, it is a little rudimentary and not very intuitive."
"The price of the solution is expensive to a degree it cannot be used by small businesses."
"The attack patterns and payloads go undetected in Cisco. We would like to see a new solution with more effective detection of attack patterns. There should be more data analyzing patterns as well which provides useful information."
"Cisco Firepower was unusable for five years. Some people installed it and had many bad experiences with it, so they decided to buy something else."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud is expensive."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud is an expensive enterprise solution."
"Cisco products are always expensive, but if you can afford the price then it's a great solution."
"In our company, we know that the price of Cisco products is high, especially for its switches, routers and IOS. The price of Cisco products may be twice its original price if you plan to extend some of its features."
"I would rate the pricing 4 out of 5."
"They are very expensive in some places and not reasonable at times for many customers. I have had customers choose another solution because of the high price."
"The cost of the license depends on the level of support that you have with Cisco."
"The annual licensing tends to be expensive, but in terms of implementing the licenses, it's a very uncomplicated process and as easy as copy-paste in its straightforwardness."
"We buy the licensing on a yearly basis, when we renew our contract. It is around $14,000."
"This is a very affordable product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco NGIPS?
I would rate the price for Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) as high.
What needs improvement with Cisco NGIPS?
I am aware that we are not measuring some metrics or tracking access through Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS). In my opinion, Cisco could improve the Web GUI for Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS).
What is your primary use case for Cisco NGIPS?
Our main use case for Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is in-line traffic control, and we are using IPS in an in-line mode.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud, Observable Networks
Sourcefire NGIPS, Firepower NGIPS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Options, Schneider Electric, Washington University in St Louis, Gotcha, Kraft Kennedy, PartnerRe, Sumologic, Veterans United, AFGE, Agraform, Artesys, Dynamic Ideas Financials, Department of Agriculture and Commerce
American Electric Power, Huntington Bank, Keycorp, Nationwide, Transunion, Marriott, Inova Health, Ford, Thomson Reuters, Dow Chemical, Equifax, Chevron, Walmart, Coca Cola
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Darktrace, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS). Updated: July 2026.
909,153 professionals have used our research since 2012.