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Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs Darktrace comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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 Sourcefire SNORT
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Darktrace
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (10th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (9th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th), AI Observability (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.0%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Darktrace is 10.1%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Darktrace10.1%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT3.0%
Other86.9%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Pasan Jayarathna - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Cyberwell Solution
Monitoring has improved data loss detection and now spots abnormal internal file transfers quickly
In my understanding, the best feature Darktrace offers is the identification of copying files, which acts as a DLP, and it is a main concern for companies because users sometimes copy data outside without knowing, especially those without a technical background. When I mention the DLP-like feature and file copying detection, the alerts have been very timely, as we get an alert within a couple of minutes, which is excellent. Even if some developers are working after hours and copying files, our SOC team detects this, and most of the time they call us so we can identify the users. The alerts are quite accurate and proactive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."
"The URL filtering is very good and you can create a group for customized URLs."
"The solution is stable."
"Solid intrusion detection and prevention that scales easily in very large environments."
"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."
"The solution is rather easy to use."
"With Cisco Sourcefire SNORT, we've been able to prevent and detect intrusion in our network and actually decrease our SLA (Service Level Agreement)."
"Darktrace has helped our organization be secure from network spam and attacks."
"We are able to detect a lot of things, actually, and see what is happening in our network."
"It is very easy to work with Darktrace once you know how it works and the type of permissions that you need to get related to the security over a network. The interface is awesome. I'm sure that you have seen Ironman, and you know Jarvis, the computer of Tony Stark. The interface of Darktrace is very similar, and you can see in 3D, like a hologram, the whole network, traffic, and all the traces inside the network. The interface is awesome, and it provides a lot of information. At least for us, it is very easy to handle this interface, get the reports, and do the interpretation of those reports. Darktrace also provides mobile monitoring. With an app on your mobile phone, you can view the information live, which is very useful for area directors and field engineers. Darktrace can be also correlated with any type of big data solution, such as Splunk."
"The most beneficial feature in Darktrace is identifying phishing emails with the help of the AI engine and machine learning."
"The scalability of Darktrace is very high."
"The most valuable feature of Darktrace is the AI that detects abnormal network activity."
"It has helped the organization to detect any malware affecting the machines...The network monitoring and the email monitoring features are very valuable for us."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it does not require human intervention to eliminate a threat; it blocks everything automatically."
 

Cons

"I want to see a better dashboard for the product. The dashboard can be a bit modified or enhanced."
"The utopia is to see everything from one dashboard, but sometimes that's not very possible."
"There are problems setting up VPNs for some regions."
"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."
"The price of this solution could be improved."
"There are some bugs in this solution and troubleshooting them is complicated."
"The customization of the rules can be simplified."
"Sometimes the solution will offer up false positives."
"It can have more integration with orchestration or event management solutions. They can provide more knowledge or research information for analysts for investigating cases and detecting anomalies in networks."
"The solution would benefit from automation. Currently, you have to know what you are searching for."
"They just need to work on their price."
"It's quite expensive to have."
"The level of tracking within the network from the transmission level up to the machine level can use improvement."
"I believe their network monitoring device licensing module could use some improvement."
"The solution's user interface and stability could be improved."
"There is a high ratio of false positive information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is cheap, I rate the tool's price as a five."
"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."
"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
"We have a three-year license for this solution."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"This solution is expensive."
"It is inexpensive considering what it can do and the competition."
"Our customers feel that the price of Darktrace is quite high compared to other solutions."
"It is expensive."
"The pricing is expensive. It costs over $100,000 a year."
"The pricing is a little high compared to the competition."
"We've budgeted about 50,000 Kuwaiti dinars for the solution. That is a yearly operating cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

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...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Darktrace?
Concerning pricing for the product, I would say it is somewhat expensive.
 

Also Known As

Sourcefire SNORT
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs. Darktrace and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.