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Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) vs Fortra's Tripwire Enterprise 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

Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS)
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortra's Tripwire Enterprise
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) is 3.4%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Tripwire Enterprise is 2.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS)3.4%
Fortra's Tripwire Enterprise2.2%
Other94.4%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer2093205 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cybersecurity Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It has excellent scalability and allows you to execute custom COCR rules, letting you fine-tune agent monitoring
I'm using Tripwire Enterprise version 9.0. In my company, thirty to forty people use Tripwire Enterprise, mainly different types of engineers, governance, risk, compliance, and cybersecurity personnel. I advise people planning to use Tripwire Enterprise to take the training because the solution has a fairly complex interface. You can do a lot of work with it, but it isn't very easy. Tripwire Enterprise is a sophisticated tool. I rate the tool an eight on a scale of one to ten because it does an excellent job of handling the unique challenges of maintaining NERC CIP compliance and monitoring industrial controls.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have found the filter and the antivirus to be most valuable."
"We have found the IPS detection to be a very valuable feature of this solution, and it is easy to use to stop policy violations."
"Cisco technical support is great; they are helpful and responsive, and we are very happy with their capabilities."
"In the virtual deployment, you have a couple of choices depending on your needs and how much bandwidth you have that needs to be inspected."
"IPS is a valuable function, because they update the signatures all the time and it's very granular."
"The solution is pricey, but worth it."
"This is one of the most stable solutions in the firewall world."
"Its ease of use and its ability to block and allow ports in and out of our organization are the most valuable features. It works very well. It gives us all the information that we need."
"The product supports different platforms."
"Even if you change a single word in Notepad, it will let you know whether it was added, removed, or modified."
"What's most valuable in Tripwire Enterprise is the ability to execute custom COCR rules that lets me fine-tune how I monitor Linux and Windows agents."
"File monitoring is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"The most valuable feature is the integrity."
"Its reporting features are great. It gives you an in-depth report. Its customization is also great, and it is working fine."
"We use Tripwire Enterprise as a tool to test the vulnerability of a network. That is the most valuable feature of the product for us."
"The most valuable feature is the integrity, because if the file configuration has been modified this solution calculates a hash code of the file and, if someone has changed the file, the solution will recalculate the hash and the admin receives a notice that the file has been modified, by sending an email or an alert to the administrator that someone has modified, added, or deleted a line, not just in files but also in tables metadata and network device configurations."
 

Cons

"The look and feel of the console could be updated."
"Scalability I would say, it has some limitations in the large deployment."
"Multi-internet line load balancing should be supported."
"The price of the solution is expensive to a degree it cannot be used by small businesses."
"Cisco can do better on their documentation because the product is really hard to understand."
"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."
"Currently, this product is difficult to manage. It needs to be more user-friendly."
"The GUI could be improved. The pain point is really only focused toward the security engineer who configures it and the operation engineer who manages it."
"The stability of Tripwire Enterprise has room for improvement, but it's about 75% what it should be already."
"The Windows online integration license needs to be improved."
"Cloud monitoring could be better. It would also be better if the company followed a pay-as-you-use model."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The deployment with certain systems can be difficult and it needs to be simplified."
"A lot of network devices need a custom integration."
"The main way that it can be improved is through better reporting."
"It needs more local support from the OEM side. It would be great if this can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It could be less expensive."
"The pricing could be improved. Our customers have a yearly license."
"The price for additional throughput is the highest in the industry."
"The licensing can be billed annually or in multi-year contracts such as three, four, or five years."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing four out of 10."
"It is expensive. It has separate licensing for all the features, and every feature set seems to require another license. Licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs besides the standard licensing fee."
"We pay for the IPS license to use this solution."
"Cloud monitoring could be better. It could also be cheaper. It would be better if the company followed a pay-as-you-use model."
"Tripwire is more expensive than Netwrix."
"The licensing depends on the equipment, how many devices and the types of devices."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Sourcefire NGIPS, Firepower NGIPS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Electric Power, Huntington Bank, Keycorp, Nationwide, Transunion, Marriott, Inova Health, Ford, Thomson Reuters, Dow Chemical, Equifax, Chevron, Walmart, Coca Cola
1. Aetna 2. Adobe 3. ADP 4. Airbus 5. Amazon 6. American Express 7. Aon 8. ATT 9. Bank of America 10. Barclays 11. Baxter International 12. Bechtel 13. Boeing 14. Cisco Systems 15. CocaCola 16. Comcast 17. Dell 18. ETRADE 19. ExxonMobil 20. Ford Motor Company 21. General Electric 22. General Motors 23. Google 24. JPMorgan Chase 25. Kraft Foods 26. Lockheed Martin 27. McDonald's 28. Merck 29. Microsoft 30. Morgan Stanley 31. Nike 32. Oracle
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) vs. Fortra's Tripwire Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.