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)

15th

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)

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 3.1%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is 5.4%, up from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention	5.4%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT	3.1%
Other	91.5%

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

"It is quite an intelligent product."

"I like most of Cisco's features, like malware detection and URL filtering."

"The URL filtering is very good and you can create a group for customized URLs."

"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."

"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is easy to configure and the reporting is great. It's also very user-friendly."

"The solution is rather easy to use."

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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the filtering."

More Cisco Sourcefire SNORT pros

"One of the most valuable features is the anti-malware protection."

"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."

"The most valuable features are that it's user-friendly, has interesting features, URL filtering, and threat prevention."

"We are currently using the URL filtering feature, which is the most popular."

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

"A strong point of Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is their product called GlobalProtect VPN, where if you enable this service, there is no other firewall available for this security profile because when you go outside of the computer network, you must connect to the Palo Alto VPN before accessing the internet, which means there will be complete security visibility."

"The sandboxing tools offer great prevention for cloud feeds."

"It is a stable product."

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention pros

Cons

"With the next release, I would like to see some PBR, so that you can do the configuration with the features."

"If the price is brought down then everybody will be happy."

"The cloud can be improved."

"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 don't think this solution is a time-based control system, because one cannot filter traffic based on time."

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

"The implementation could be a bit easier."

"Performance needs improvement."

More Cisco Sourcefire SNORT cons

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

"The installation was complicated."

"The technology firewall anomaly network could stand improvement."

"The documentation needs to be improved. I need better information about how to configure it and what the best practices are."

"We are attempting to improve the use of URL filtering beyond threat protection."

"Sometimes when you want to group a set of ports, and communicate with Palo Alto, you cannot group TCP and UDP ports together. This needs to be adjusted."

"In Africa, the technical support is probably not as good as in Europe and the USA because it's a specific premium support, partner-enabled premium support and all of that. But it's really good, I don't really have any complaints, it's fairly good. I'll give them 80%."

"There is a potential drawback with the lack of support for the ICAP protocol."

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."

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

"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."

"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."

"We have a three-year license for this solution."

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

"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."

"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."

"The pricing could be lower."

"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."

"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention could improve by having consistent pricing at system levels."

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

More Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention pricing and cost advice

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882,961 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

University

13%

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

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 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?

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...

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