Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

Cisco and WatchGuard are both solutions in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category. Cisco is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.7, while WatchGuard is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.6. Cisco holds a 2.7% mindshare in ID, compared to WatchGuard’s 8.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of WatchGuard users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 5, 2025

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT and WatchGuard Firebox are competing network security solutions. WatchGuard Firebox tends to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive features and straightforward deployment.

Features: Cisco Sourcefire SNORT provides robust intrusion prevention, including deep packet inspection and open-source flexibility. WatchGuard Firebox offers user-friendly firewall management, advanced threat detection, and seamless integration options.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could enhance its user interface for easier management and improve hardware integration. WatchGuard Firebox might focus on reducing costs and offering more advanced customization features. Both could expand their documentation for better user guidance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WatchGuard Firebox is known for straightforward deployment and strong customer service support. Cisco Sourcefire SNORT requires technical expertise for setup but provides cost-effective customer service options.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is noted for low initial setup costs and delivers value through open-source capabilities. WatchGuard Firebox requires a higher upfront investment but offers significant ROI via its comprehensive features and ease of use.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs. WatchGuard Firebox Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs. WatchGuard Firebox

September 2025

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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

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 17.1%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT is 2.7%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard Firebox is 8.9%, down from 12.4% 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 (%)
Fortinet FortiGate	17.1%
WatchGuard Firebox	8.9%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT	2.7%
Other	71.3%

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

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Jack Poon

Treasury Specialist at Dah Sing Bank

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.

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Rajesh Makwana

Regional Pre-Sales Engineer at Roundrobin Tech

Efficient bandwidth management and secure network access with a strong firewall

The primary use case of the Firebox mainly revolves around bandwidth management, unnecessary web blocking, application control, and protection against brute force attacks. It is also implemented for load balancing, SD-WAN, and branch-to-branch connectivity from one location to another. We also use…

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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 simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."

"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."

"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."

"It offers web filtering capabilities at a more affordable price compared to other solutions like PSMs or NETGEAR."

"The best feature of Fortinet FortiGate is SD-WAN; it ensures continuous connectivity by taking over during link failures, preventing any downtime for the company."

"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."

"It performs very well."

"The key features include SD-WAN, firewall use, intrusion prevention, intrusion detection, and application control."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

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

"It is quite an intelligent product."

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

"The solution is rather easy to use."

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

"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically learn the traffic in our environment, and change the merit recommendations based on that."

"The tool's most valuable feature is threat detection, which is important because we have multiple layers not only in Cisco."

More Cisco Sourcefire SNORT pros

"Firebox's best feature is the access portal."

"I find this solution very easy to manage. The web manager and Firebox key features are particularly impressive for cloud applications. That's why I often recommend this solution to our clients. It has good threat management capabilities and works against different types of threats."

"The ports that I have assigned appear to be unattainable to outside 'mal-actors,' unless they have an address registered on the internet that this thing is expecting. That's a layer of security."

"It saves us time in the respect that we now have the template built for it so we can get in and get it done. We've had much less problem supporting Voice over IP technologies from different companies. Because our client base has grown over the years, we're probably saving 20 to 30 man-hours a month now that we've got this on a good stable level."

"The features that I have found most valuable are the FireWall features. The management side of WatchGuard is quite easy because it supports two ways to manage it - by the web and the other one they call WatchGuard systems manager. I used to be familiar with WSM only, but they improved their GUI in the web browser and now it is much easier to do it within the web browser."

"The Dimension control, the one-spot reporting and control, has been nice. It's been easy to go in and make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and that only the right stuff is getting in."

"I like intrusion detection the most."

"The initial setup was straightforward and, because we only need intrusion detection and prevention, we needed only about four hours to deploy it."

More WatchGuard Firebox pros

Cons

"The solution could improve by having some additional features, such as IBS and better cloud administration."

"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."

"Fortinet FortiGate can improve performance. There was a huge challenge in terms of CPU and memory where the IPS engine would keep triggering. There were random spikes of overutilization in the CPU and memory resources. They have to work on CPU and memory stability considering these IPS engines. A few versions were very unstable."

"I would like to see improvements in some of the hard drive features on FortiGate so that we can generate reporting within a single box."

"Their support can be better, and there should be better policies for immediate replacement in critical situations."

"They should add a feature for detailed reporting."

"One of the most important areas for improvement for Fortinet FortiGate is the limited resources for tests."

"I cannot say definitively about the return on investment with Fortinet FortiGate because I have always been in the technical field, but most of our clients are very happy since threats were stopped, generating confidence in the Fortinet brand among our clients."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

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

"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."

"The cloud can be improved."

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

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

"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."

"The pricing needs to be improved. We have lots of low-budget clients around us. Budget constraints are always a deterrent in our market."

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

More Cisco Sourcefire SNORT cons

"An area for improvement is that when we use a web administration link, there is no security."

"Setup of this solution is complex, it's not plug and play."

"It would be wonderful if the WatchGuard team develops nice products for threat intelligence."

"The solution needs to improve the interface. I'm not able to easily find things using it."

"The only problem I have with Firebox is the grouping issue. When implementing a rule using a group of IPs, it is not possible to do that directly."

"Some of the configuration options are somewhat confusing."

"I would like to see more simplified management of the firewall... It's a complicated system to use."

"The website must provide more information on the product."

More WatchGuard Firebox cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FortiGate SWG is reasonably priced."

"Pricing is good. They offer a lot of things, the most important is the support. Every time you upgrade your license, you also get insurance for the equipment. If you have any problem with equipment, they send in new equipment."

"It is cost-effective, and provides a good value for your money. The pricing, and license renewal, is very reasonable for us."

"The price is highly competitive when compared to other brands that offer similar functionality."

"The price range is quite acceptable and normal."

"The license of Fortinet FortiGate should be reduced."

"Its price could be better."

"It has a competitive price."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"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 are utilizing an MSP licensing model and are content with the minimal amount spent on the devices rather than committing to long-term licensing."

"WatchGuard Firebox is a cheap solution."

"The two larger devices are about $1,000 each and the smaller ones are about $500 or $600 each... It's cheaper and you have more control because it's self-managed."

"We paid $4000 in AUD for WatchGuard Firebox per year. There were no additional costs."

"Despite the fact that there is always room for improvement, the current pricing of the solution is still lower compared to its competitors."

"It's in the medium range. Its price is pretty good considering the functions and add-ons that are used."

"The licensing costs are comparatively lower than other providers, and I would rate the pricing as five out of five."

"The price of the WatchGuard Firebox is reasonable."

More WatchGuard Firebox pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

University

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	350
Midsize Enterprise	129
Large Enterprise	187

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	91
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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What do you like most about Cisco Sourcefire SNORT?

The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet.

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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...

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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,...

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What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) vs Cisco Sourcefire SNORT

Compared 20% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention vs Cisco Sourcefire SNORT

Compared 18% of the time

Zscaler Cloud IPS vs Cisco Sourcefire SNORT

Compared 9% of the time

Trend Micro TippingPoint Threat Protection System vs Cisco Sourcefire SNORT

Compared 9% of the time

ExtremeCloud IQ vs Cisco Sourcefire SNORT

Compared 9% of the time

More Cisco Sourcefire SNORT Competitors

OPNsense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 7% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 5% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 5% of the time

Sophos XG vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 5% of the time

Sophos XGS vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

More WatchGuard Firebox Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

September 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT

September 2025

Download Cisco Sourcefire SNORT product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard Firebox

August 2025

Download WatchGuard Firebox product report

Also Known As

No data available

Sourcefire SNORT

WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate excels in providing integrated VPN, firewalling, and Unified Threat Management (UTM) with centralized management and high availability. It supports remote access and comprehensive threat protection, making it a preferred choice for securing networks.

Fortinet FortiGate offers a robust security platform with features such as strong intrusion prevention, application control, and web filtering. Its integration with Active Directory and SD-WAN functionality provides scalable solutions for large networks. Users appreciate its ease of use through centralized management interfaces, ensuring robust security with flexible configurations. However, FortiGate could enhance its graphical interface and technical support responsiveness, address firmware bugs and costly licensing, improve logging, integrate better with third-party tools, and strengthen scalability and memory for log storage. Complexity in configuration and the need for intuitive features are noted challenges, and there's a demand for advanced security, zero-trust capabilities, and AI integration.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN: Secure remote access and connectivity.
Firewalling: Protects networks from unauthorized access and attacks.
UTM: Offers a comprehensive approach to threat management.
SD-WAN: Optimizes traffic routing for efficient network performance.
Web Filtering: Controls and monitors web access and ensures Internet security.

What benefits or ROI should be considered?

Centralized Management: Simplifies administration and monitoring.
High Availability: Ensures consistent security and network availability.
Scalability: Adapts to the needs of growing networks.
Comprehensive Threat Protection: Provides robust security measures.
Ease of Use: Minimizes the complexity of security management.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries like education, finance, and government. Companies use it for firewall protection, VPN, and SD-WAN capabilities, ensuring secure perimeter and data center security. It facilitates remote access management and traffic routing optimization, offering reliable security and connectivity solutions.

Fortinet

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

WatchGuard Firebox is a high-performance firewall known for its ease of setup, offering robust security with layered protection and centralized management capabilities.

WatchGuard Firebox stands out for its intuitive management and high throughput, addressing security needs with features like VPN, web filtering, and threat detection. Its centralized control and reporting abilities, along with Active Directory integration, make it popular among varied organizations. Its user-friendly interface and ongoing updates enhance usability and reliability. However, there's a call for better cloud-based administration, scalability, and improved integration with third-party vendors.

What are the key features of WatchGuard Firebox?

Ease of Setup: Quick and straightforward installation process.
GUI: User-friendly graphical interface for simplified navigation.
VPN Features: Secure and efficient virtual private network management.
Web Filtering: Advanced filtering for safer browsing experiences.
Threat Detection: Proactive monitoring and detection of cyber threats.

What benefits or ROI should be evaluated?

Centralized Control: Streamlined management from a single point.
High Throughput: Efficient data handling and processing capacity.
Stable Performance: Consistent and reliable operational functionality.
Active Directory Integration: Seamless connection with user directories.
Customer Service: Strong support service for customer inquiries.

WatchGuard Firebox is implemented across industries to secure internet gateways and protect data in multi-site businesses. Its applications span from Unified Threat Management (UTM) and intrusion prevention to compliance support in business environments requiring secure connectivity through VPNs.

WatchGuard

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

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

Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs. WatchGuard Firebox

September 2025

Free Report: Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs. WatchGuard Firebox

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