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Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) vs Hillstone S-Series Network 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS)
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Hillstone S-Series Network ...
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
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 Secure IPS (NGIPS) is 3.4%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System is 1.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS)3.4%
Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System1.5%
Other95.1%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer373227 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Marketing strengths shine but regaining user trust needs significant effort
There are numerous things that could be improved about Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) to get it back on track. Sollution for small branches: when we have to connect a lot very small branches (or sometimes only an ATM) we need something small, with LTE and with reasonable price. Cisco response is SDWAN but it is not always the case. Recently Cisco released some small firewalls but I have not tried them yet. Central management with FMC is a very good idea, but sometimes local management or monitoring is helpfull. With Cisco You have to decide: central or local. You cannot have both. Regarding usability, when you commit configuration on Cisco, it sometimes takes very long. Commits also take some time for the competition, but Cisco is definitely lagging behind the rest in this respect. Last but not least, for me as a professional is lack of CLI. With CLI, I can configure every firewall on the market except Cisco. CLI is very important in professional working, and IMHO it was an unwise decision by Cisco to remove it. Graphical interfaces are very nice, but when you've got thousands of objects in a big installation and have to configure many things, CLI is a much faster way to do it.
reviewer1080873 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Complements any firewall
The core processors are there and it's able to generate reports for that. It also complements any kind of firewall. For example, if an end user is using Palo Alto as a firewall, they'd need another layer of firewall like the S-Series that will protect internal servers. It's something that complements any firewall in the market.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Cisco NGIPS are the VPN, IPS, access policy management, EIM, and the ASA model as part of Firepower."
"Good IPS and VirtualBox features."
"The Malware Detection, threat defense, sandboxing, VPN and mail security have all been valuable features of Cisco NGIPS."
"Cisco NGIPS is a stable tool...The technical support provided by Cisco NGIPS is okay."
"The solution is stable. This is one of the good things in Firepower. Especially if we use ESE with it."
"Its ease of use and its ability to block and allow ports in and out of our organization are the most valuable features. It works very well. It gives us all the information that we need."
"The most valuable feature is that it is able to detect any form of infiltration."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco NGIPS is the centralized user interface. You have the ability to quickly push out configurations across your environment using the Cisco UI. It's a powerful capability of that solution."
"Setup is straightforward with the same reliability and scalability as the firewall series."
 

Cons

"The price is a little high. It's hard to find solutions that are easy on the budget and strike a balance between affordability and features."
"Cisco NGIPS could improve its ability to do SSL inspections. Sometimes the ability to do SSL inspection is not scalable and you might not be able to get the installment required if you don't size the right hardware."
"The user interface needs some improvement, it is a little rudimentary and not very intuitive."
"The GUI user interface could be improved and the login is not very user friendly."
"The SSL decrypt could be improved, but it's normal. All the devices in our platform need a lot of memory or CPU to do the SSL decrypt. This is an issue to improve in all platforms, not only in Cisco."
"We would like an option to search through the logs to be added to this solution."
"Our customers are still facing many bugs on the system. It has matured noticeably, but we are still facing multiple stability issues on Firepower. There are more than 80 or 90 bugs for each release node. It's a considerable number of bugs."
"I recommend it to other users, but I am concerned about stability, as the stability is not adequate."
"Lack of tools to help educate end users"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licenses for this product are available for either one, or three year terms."
"They are very expensive in some places and not reasonable at times for many customers. I have had customers choose another solution because of the high price."
"This is an expensive product, with the biggest cost being the license that keeps the service going."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"The price of the solution is expensive to a degree it cannot be used by small businesses. It is best suited for medium and enterprise businesses."
"Cisco products are always expensive, but if you can afford the price then it's a great solution."
"I usually work with Fortinet and FortiGate which is a lower cost in comparison with Cisco NGIPS."
"It could be less expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise27
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco NGIPS?
The product's initial setup phase was easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco NGIPS?
Cisco is one of the top brands known for cost-effectiveness, making it worth the money. It's cheaper to integrate with existing IT security solutions compared to other expensive brands with subscri...
What needs improvement with Cisco NGIPS?
There are numerous things that could be improved about Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) to get it back on track. Sollution for small branches: when we have to connect a lot very small branches (or sometime...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Sourcefire NGIPS, Firepower NGIPS
Hillstone S-Series NIPS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Electric Power, Huntington Bank, Keycorp, Nationwide, Transunion, Marriott, Inova Health, Ford, Thomson Reuters, Dow Chemical, Equifax, Chevron, Walmart, Coca Cola
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