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Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs Darktrace vs Trellix Intrusion Prevention System 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 10.2%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Trellix Intrusion Prevention System is 3.0%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Darktrace10.2%
Trellix Intrusion Prevention System3.0%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT3.0%
Other83.8%
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.
BS
Large account Manager at Softcell Technologies Limited
Has offered reliable threat protection and detailed network insights but could expand features beyond existing capabilities
The best features of Trellix Intrusion Prevention System include advanced ATP (Advanced Threat Protection), which uses signatures, behavior analysis, and machine learning to stop zero-day exploits and malware advanced persistent threats (APTs). They track and collect data from APTs, which allows them to track malicious files entering the environment. The system offers inline prevention and real-time automatic blocking of malicious packets before they reach the network. It integrates with the Trellix ecosystem and provides application visibility and control. The solution provides deep insight into network traffic, applications, and protocols for better information. All packets coming through the application are analyzed and reported. They share intelligence updates regularly to protect from different malicious files and sector-specific threats. It supports both on-premise and cloud environments.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you compare it to other vendors, the technical support from Cisco is excellent."
"It has a huge rate of protection. It's has a low level of positives and a huge rate of threat protection. It's easy to deploy and easy to implement. It has an incredible price rate compared to similar solutions."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."
"This solution makes life a lot easier as there are fewer man-hours required and we no longer need too many resources to manage it."
"With Cisco Sourcefire SNORT, we've been able to prevent and detect intrusion in our network and actually decrease our SLA (Service Level Agreement)."
"We primarily use this solution as an intrusion prevention system for external firewalls and deploy the solution on-premises."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT are the dashboard for monitoring events."
"Darktrace's most valuable features are its dashboards and its ability to summarize huge amounts of information about threats and suspicious traffic."
"The features that are most valuable to me include detection, response with analytics, and network detection."
"I highly recommend the overall solution to other users and rate it as nine out of ten."
"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 Antigena feature is very useful."
"We have found the product to be stable and issue-free."
"Darktrace is a good product and it can be implemented on premises."
"It is really good; it has given us a view of our company and it has actually caught a couple of people that were doing data exfiltration and stealing data from our company, and we caught them doing it in the act in live time, which is just incredible."
"It has a lot of functions, such as firewall. We are administrators, and we create some rules to protect our network. We also monitor the traffic in and out and have disk encryption on-premises. When we detect malware, we scan for the virus on the PC. We can then delete or block the malware."
"Great monitoring feature."
"Overall the solution is very good. It offers great protection and gives us a good overview of what is on the network."
"We use a lot of the functions this solution provides such as the firewall and the ability to check aliases, and we can monitor and show the traffic that's moving in and out."
"The solution can scale."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The best features of Trellix Intrusion Prevention System include advanced ATP (Advanced Threat Protection), which uses signatures, behavior analysis, and machine learning to stop zero-day exploits and malware advanced persistent threats (APTs)."
"The feature I found most valuable is the network threat analyzer in the security platform. It also integrates with GTI, or Global Threat Intelligence. Otherwise, I just use the basic features."
 

Cons

"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
"Performance needs improvement."
"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."
"The main dashboard of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could improve."
"Sometimes the solution will offer up false positives."
"The implementation could be a bit easier."
"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."
"I believe their network monitoring device licensing module could use some improvement."
"There aren't so many third-party vendor platforms natively integrated with the platform."
"There are still some issues with the network capturing or blocking traffic even after implementing exceptions. It requires more learning in this area."
"I feel that Darktrace could be improved, particularly in the support aspect which is currently very poor. We need to chase Darktrace instead of them being proactive with us."
"It would be helpful if they could recognize incidents and simplify the customer's challenge to identify what is happening."
"The management dashboards and the meter dashboards should be more user-friendly and simple to use for easy management."
"It would be useful if there was a way to check to see if there are certain devices that are not in sync with the solution. I'm not sure if this is an option or not."
"Its threat analyzer could be better. It should also have agents. They should improve this product by installing agents for the machine to get more visibility. Currently, they are monitoring only the network. They should also monitor the agents from inside. It should also have a better pricing plan because it is an expensive product."
"The deployment was a little difficult, I did it myself."
"There are limited resources for configuration guidance."
"The Network Security Managers could be more stable, agile, and work faster. When it comes to instability, there is room for improvement."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"The solution needs to improve the graphical interface. And they had a limitation in some of the sensor modems as well."
"The system isn't fool-proof. Sometimes, based on the network or other reasons, McAfee cannot detect the actual attack."
"Some of the documentation is not as straightforward as it could be. It's much too general - especially in areas related to updates."
"The platform’s GUI could be the latest."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
"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."
"We have a three-year license for this solution."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
"The price of the solution is not cheap. It is not a one-time purchase, there is a subscription that needs to be paid every one to five years depending on your choice. It is expensive but you can reduce the price by only using the services that you want."
"It was $3,600 a month or $2,000 plus or so. I am not sure. Its licensing is pretty simple."
"It's an expensive solution."
"Darktrace is pricey, but the price is reasonable for what the solution does, and it's comparable to other products."
"If you consider the features and the cost of market leaders, we are satisfied with the pricing."
"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."
"We had an issue with pricing initially and had to cancel some of the features of the projects to fit the budget. I would like to see pricing that is not broken up into parts so that we can buy the whole package once. Darktrace is more expensive than an average solution, but it's functionality won't match that of an average solution."
"The tool is competitively priced."
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
 

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 t...
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 hav...
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 traff...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing u...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Darktrace?
Concerning pricing for the product, I would say it is somewhat expensive.
What needs improvement with McAfee Network Security Platform?
Trellix Intrusion Prevention System does not provide virtual patching. Patching involves updates on the OS side to ad...
What is your primary use case for McAfee Network Security Platform?
We do not use Trellix Intrusion Prevention System; rather, we sell the Trellix Intrusion Prevention System solution. ...
What advice do you have for others considering McAfee Network Security Platform?
I have experience working with other tools, specifically Trellix solutions such as DLP, EDR, and MDR, as well as with...
 

Also Known As

Sourcefire SNORT
No data available
McAfee Network Security Platform, McAfee NSP, IntruShield Network Intrusion Prevention System, IntruShield Network IPS
 

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.
Desjardins Group, HollyFrontier, Nubia, Agbar, WNS Global Services, INAIL, Universidad de Las Américas Puebla (UDLAP), Cook County, China Pacific Insurance, Bank Central Asia, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, City of Chicago, Macquarie Telecom, Sutherland Global Services, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, United Automotive Electronic Systems
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.
906,852 professionals have used our research since 2012.