Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention comparison

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs. Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

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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)

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Palo Alto Networks Advanced...

Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is 4.8%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention	4.8%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT	3.1%
Other	92.1%

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2772102

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.

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Partha Dash

Global Network Tech Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Advanced protection enables us to confidently secure against evolving threats

Palo Alto Networks can improve Advanced Threat Prevention by catering to the growing adoption of AI and agentic tooling. The Threat Protection modules should have the necessary intelligence to protect against those types of threats, as AI will be there to do a human job; this is an evolving area. From an Advanced Threat Protection perspective, the technology associated with Palo Alto Networks, such as their sandboxing environment, is quite good. However, Palo Alto needs to focus on how to bring that technology to end users and how easy it is to use, especially in a hybrid environment where users work from various locations. While Palo Alto excels in certain setups, they need to improve the user experience in distributed working conditions.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The whole solution is very good, and stable."

"We primarily use this solution as an intrusion prevention system for external firewalls and deploy the solution on-premises."

"The most valuable feature is the visibility that we have across the virtual environment."

"The solution can be integrated with some network electors like Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco ISE, and Active Directory to provide the client with authentication certificates."

"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."

"Cisco technical support is unbeatable. It offers a premium service every time."

"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."

More Cisco Sourcefire SNORT pros

"As a next-generation IPS, it's a very good firewall."

"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Threat Prevention for our company is the next generation firewall."

"Most of the features of Palo Alto Threat Prevention are alright. I recommend features like content filtering, IP address, & intelligent firewalls. The reporting feature is very good."

"Everything has been okay with the solution. We are using all of the features."

"It's a monster, it's got so many beautiful features. We do deal with other firewalls and we've got a better idea of what other firewalls' capabilities are, any comparison with the Palo Alto I liked the quality of service on the applications that you can control the amount of bandwidth an application is allowed to consume. The best feature is the quality of the application quality of service."

"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention is the market leader as far as security gateways and endpoint protection. Additionally, the threat database that is used is one of the best."

"The user interface is a bit more professional than some free products."

"After the proper implementation of that product, we've not had one hack attempt."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention pros

Cons

"The main dashboard of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could improve."

"Integration with other components — even Cisco's own products — can be enhanced to improve administrative experience."

"I would like to have analytics included in the suite."

"To be frank, the product is not really stable, although they're working on that."

"The pricing needs to be improved."

"This solution needs to be more customizable."

"While the alerts they offer are good, it could improve it in the sense that they should be more detailed to make the alerts more useful to us in general. Sometimes the solution will offer up false positives. Due to the fact that the alerts aren't detailed, we have to go dig around to see why is it being blocked. The solution would be infinitely better if there was just a bit more detail in the alert information and logging we receive."

"I want to see a better dashboard for the product. The dashboard can be a bit modified or enhanced."

More Cisco Sourcefire SNORT cons

"The solution needs to improve its local technical support services. There is no premium support offered in our market."

"Palo Alto's maintenance needs to be improved."

"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention could improve the commercial offing. Other solutions, such as Fortinet provide better commercial features."

"The pricing has improved with the newer generation of their Firewalls, but the price could always be lower."

"Mission learning techniques should continue to expand and detect unknown threats on the fly."

"The technology firewall anomaly network could stand improvement."

"The pricing has improved with the newer generation of their Firewalls, but the price could always be lower. In comparison with other solutions, I believe they're quite competitive."

"The application’s pricing and dashboard need improvement. It could be user-friendly."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"If one is an extremely expensive product, and ten is cheap, I rate the tool's price as a five."

"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 pricing and the licensing are pretty competitive at this stage. As a reseller, I would like to see the price come down a little bit so I can compete better against other firewalls because we do that all the time."

"The product’s pricing is expensive for small companies."

"It's not too expensive."

"The cost involves the price of the hardware, which is expensive. However, most of the Palo Alto solutions are expensive."

"If you want to have all of the good features then you have to pay extra for licensing."

"The price of the solution is higher than others on the market. A price reduction would be beneficial if it does not impact their database quality."

"There is an initial, expensive investment but the return is good."

"It is an expensive solution and I would like to see a drop in price."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Construction Company

University

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

10%

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	14

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...

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would prefer Arbor.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention requires an add-on license and is considered expensive compared to competitors like Cisco AMP and FortiGate ( /products/fortinet-fortigate-reviews ) fi...

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?

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Product Reports

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT

Download Cisco Sourcefire SNORT product report

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

Download Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention product report

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention report

Also Known As

Sourcefire SNORT

No data available

Overview

Snort is an open-source, rule-based, intrusion detection and prevention system. It combines the benefits of signature-, protocol-, and anomaly-based inspection methods to deliver flexible protection from malware attacks. Snort gained notoriety for being able to accurately detect threats at high speeds.

Cisco

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is a cloud-based security service that combines cutting-edge technologies, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, and expert human monitoring, to effectively thwart advanced threats like malware, zero-day attacks, and command-and-control threats. It offers inline protection, scrutinizing all network traffic irrespective of port, protocol, or encryption. An integral component of Palo Alto Networks' security platform, it enjoys widespread adoption across diverse organizations. With its robust security capabilities, it's an ideal choice for entities of all sizes, particularly those in high-risk sectors such as finance, healthcare, and government agencies, seeking to safeguard their networks from a broad spectrum of advanced threats.

Palo Alto Networks

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

University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, SkiStar AB, TRI-AD, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs. Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention