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Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs ExtraHop Reveal(x) 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 Sourcefire SNORT
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (14th)
ExtraHop Reveal(x)
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (5th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is designed for Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) and holds a mindshare of 3.6%, down 3.8% compared to last year.
ExtraHop Reveal(x), on the other hand, focuses on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), holds 17.3% mindshare, up 17.4% since last year.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)
 

Featured Reviews

Jack Poon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers ease of setup and good documentation
When it comes to the product's deployment phase, we have a lot of vendor support. We have a lot of skills here in Hong Kong. Our company doesn't find any problem deploying Cisco solutions. The solution is deployed on an on-premises version. Speaking about the time required to deploy the solution, I would say that we have quite a lot of previous experience with deploying Cisco products. We have our company's standard design document, which we need to follow. We have a standard testing procedure for all those features. We just take out some appropriate parts and then compile them into one document for an individual project. It is actually quite easy for us to do the documentation, so it just takes one or two hours, and we can do the implementation because all the materials and testing procedures are already in our company standard documents, so it is not that difficult for us.
Jordan Swanson - PeerSpot reviewer
It helps you visualize how data moves across your network
I rate ExtraHop Reveal(x) 10 out of 10. This is more of a nice-to-have rather than a must-have solution. Something like a CrowdStrike or a next-gen AV is an essential product, whereas NDR is more of a nice-to-have thing. If you only have a little bit of traffic, you're probably not going to get anything out of it. It's better for a medium-to-large enterprise. It's more appropriate for companies wh a massfootprints or industrial applications using use nonstandard devices. It's helpful for things that use SCADA, the Internet of Things, somethingings that don't fit neatly into other management categories. Itty common for industrial, construction, or maintenance devices to be a little lackluster in their security. Major breaches like the Colonial Pipeline hack and attempted hacks on nuclear power plants all went through Internet of Things vulnerabilities and other devices where security wasn't part of their plan. This helps you cover yourself by monitoring the traffic. With something like CrowdStrike, you need to put the CrowdStrike sensor on it, but Reveal(x) looks at everything on the network.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the filtering."
"It is quite an intelligent product."
"The URL filtering is very good and you can create a group for customized URLs."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT are the dashboard for monitoring events."
"In general, the features are all great. However, if I need to take hardware for ASA, because they need to upgrade to Firepower, we want to create rules. For that, most of the time we go to the command line. Right now Firepower is working really hard on the grid. You can apply all those rules to the grid. Even if you want to monitor the logs, for example, the activity will tell you which particular user has been blocked because of that rule. Firepower's monitoring interface is very good, because you can see each and every piece. ASA also had it, but there you needed to type the command and be under the server to see all that stuff. In Firepower you have the possibility to go directly to the firewall. The way the monitoring is displayed is also very nice. The feature I appreciate most in Firepower is actually the grid. The grid has worked very well."
"It simplifies the configuration process by offering pre-defined base configurations, including security and connectivity settings."
"I like most of Cisco's features, like malware detection and URL filtering."
"The security features of this solution are the most valuable."
"ExtraHop Reveal(x) is one of the tools that works out of the box when it comes to threat hunting."
"When there are performance issues with an HTTP app, ExtraHop enables us to identify the causes within a few minutes. We can see what transactions are being impacted by something that may be happening within the server environment."
"The most valuable features of ExtraHop Reveal(x) are the detection and alerting of network behavior and anomalies."
"The solution offers a friendly GUI for security features."
"The solution works well for sending sensors."
"Setting up the solution is relatively easy."
"It's a wire analytics tool. We use it for isolating and determining issues on our network or applications. It does a lot for crediting the network as opposed to discrediting the network. A lot of people come along and say that it's a network issue. It's always considered to be a network issue, but by using ExtraHop, we can quickly tell them that it's not a networking issue. It's something to do with your application or something at the other end. It could be a database issue. This tool gives us the ability to pinpoint with great accuracy the comings and goings on our network."
 

Cons

"The solution's approach to managing traffic blocking is confusing and impractical."
"The cloud can be improved."
"Integration with other components — even Cisco's own products — can be enhanced to improve administrative experience."
"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."
"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"There are problems setting up VPNs for some regions."
"With the next release, I would like to see some PBR, so that you can do the configuration with the features."
"The solution's reporting part and GUI are areas with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"Agent management could certainly use some focus. It should also be a little bit easier to work with collections. We should be able to nest collections within collections. There should be better nesting."
"I would like to see more cloud capability."
"Currently, we have to check manually as we do not receive any notifications about new patches, maintenance, or firmware releases."
"They used to have the ability to decode Citrix sign-on, setup, and tear down. Unfortunately, Citrix has stopped sharing that knowledge. Citrix has continued to change its model of processing, making it harder and harder to troubleshoot."
"Netflow - Processing Netflow can be cumbersome as it requires triggers to truly gain value and insight. This in turn can add a bit of load to the hardware. The focus of ExtraHop Reveal (x) is live packet data."
"ExtraHop Reveal(x) could improve by allowing a longer look back in the feature. Right now you have a limit of 30 days to look back on your activity. I've used Darktrace before, and they allow you the ability to play back events. This would be a good feature to have in ExtraHop Reveal(x)."
"The solution is expensive and gets more expensive if a company needs to scale it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a three-year license for this solution."
"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."
"The solution is based on an annual subscription model and is expensive."
"I rate ExtraHop Reveal(x) six out of 10 for affordability. We pay for an annual license. It's always one of those trade-offs. You get a lot of value, but ExtraHop isn't exorbitantly priced. You can pay extra for additional features like the ability to decode HL7 traffic, which is crucial for EMR environments."
"I rate the price of ExtraHop Reveal(x) a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"I would rate the price a three out of five. It could be less expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Sourcefire SNORT?
The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet.
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?
Cisco offers the Cisco DNA Center, which is a source that provides crucial information for us to monitor performance, and see whether there is any trouble. We are using Cisco DNA center, but again,...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We just did an assessment for our 47 datacenters around North America. The top two enterprise-level network monitoring solutions were ExtraHop first, Riverbed SteelCenter second. Their negotiated c...
What open source tool can one use to measure bandwidth from one's upstream service provider?
One I am looking closely at is AppNeta. They have an appliance that can digest the flow and do a better job than Netflow. The other one we are using is ExtraHop. This has both a Datacenter Hig...
What do you like most about ExtraHop Reveal(x)?
With ExtraHop Reveal(x), it gives me more visibility into the packets. It doesn't provide the entire packet capture, but it offers more information on how connections are made at the network layer....
 

Also Known As

Sourcefire SNORT
Reveal(x), Revealx
 

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
Wood County Hospital
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