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Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs Fortinet FortiNDR 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 Network Analytics
Ranking in Network Detection and Response (NDR)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (33rd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Fortinet FortiNDR
Ranking in Network Detection and Response (NDR)
11th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Detection and Response (NDR) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 5.8%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiNDR is 3.1%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Detection and Response (NDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics5.8%
Fortinet FortiNDR3.1%
Other91.1%
Network Detection and Response (NDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Akash Das Barman - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Trainee at DataSpace Academy
Network analytics has reduced investigation time and provides deeper visibility into lateral movement
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look very attractive for audit and compliance teams at implementation time and can generate structured reports for visibility, risk posture, and traffic summaries. In practice, many teams do not rely on it heavily because SIEM tools or GRC platforms already handle reporting better. Built-in threat intelligence feeds represent another area where expectations do not always match usage. The platform includes threat intelligence-based detection and classifications. Initially, teams expect to depend on this heavily, but later SOC teams often prefer their own threat intelligence feeds or correlate intelligence inside SIEM instead. The built-in feeds are used but not as a primary detection source. Automated incident summaries and guided investigation views are designed to simplify triage by automatically grouping related activity into incidents. However, teams often move away from them due to various factors affecting adoption.
Anton Anton - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at sanf
Network detection enhances security while seamless integration boosts utility
I use Fortinet FortiNDR for its Network Detection features, primarily with FortiGate on-premises. However, I do not handle day-to-day operations myself; my team manages the tools. In general, there is no issue with FortiGate in our company Some of the valuable features include FortiGate's Network…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The network visibility feature opens up a whole new pane of glass that didn't exist before, so when you talk about being able to look into your network and understand what's there for security events, impostering, and everything that Stealthwatch can bring to the table, there's nothing else that a typical customer's going to have installed today that will give them any of that information."
"Maps is a unique feature which provides logical grouping of different segments of the network with complete visibility and alerting based on a total or protocol base as per defined threshold."
"StealthWatch lets me see the ports running in and out and the country. It has excellent reporting, telemetry, and artificial intelligence features. With the telemetry, I can set thresholds to detect sudden changes and the alarms go through the PLC parts. I can see all the ports running on that trunk."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the way the net flow is being merged together in a single pane. That's been extremely useful for us, because can see what's going on with traffic in one single place."
"The ability to send data flow from other places and have them all in one place is very valuable for us."
"The most valuable feature is NetFlow. The beginning of any security investigation starts with NetFlow data."
"This solution has increased our threat detection rate by forty to sixty percent."
"Time to value is very good for Stealthwatch."
"The dashboards are very informative compared to other solutions like Cisco, providing valuable insights into network threats."
"Using Fortinet FortiNDR as a bundle is cost-effective, providing a complete package of tools."
 

Cons

"Better integration between Cisco Secure Network Analytics and Cisco Secure Workload would be beneficial."
"If there was one improvement I’d suggest it would be that it detect traffic through an intranet. The product requires that traffic flow through a managed network device. The product is designed mostly for enterprise environments and not smaller environments or businesses."
"I would like to see a hybrid solution that can work without being connected directly to the internet for those destinations."
"Stealthwatch is still maturing in AI. It uses artificial intelligence for predictions, but AI still needs to mature. It is in a phase where you get 95% correct detection. As its AI engine learns more, it will become more accurate. This is applicable to all the devices that are using AI because they support both supervised and unsupervised machine learning. The accuracy in the case of supervised machine learning is dependent on the data you feed into the box. The accuracy in the case of unsupervised machine learning is dependent on the algorithm. The algorithm matures depending on retrospective learning, and this is how it is able to detect zero-day attacks."
"I would like to see more and cleaner reporting. For example, if I pull up Steven and I want to look and maybe compare him to what you've done in the past week, and compare that to the past six months, the point would be to see what the difference in activity looks like over this time. I don't see that capability in reporting to date. You see that trend but you don't really see a straightforward comparison. That right there is key to what we want to see about the normal activity."
"Cisco Stealthwatch is scalable with money. It's expensive."
"The usability of this solution needs to be improved."
"We need to be able to filter out internal IPs as non-threats."
"I would like to see the inclusion of sandboxing in the bundling. Currently, sandbox is not included in our package."
"There is room for improvement in third-party integrations, particularly with other vendors like Check Point and Palo Alto."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our fees are approximately $3,000 USD."
"The licensing costs are outrageous."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"It has a subscription model. There is yearly support, and there is also three-year support. It depends on what the customers want."
"The tool is not cheaply priced."
"Today, we are part of the big Cisco ELA, and it is a la carte. We can get orders for whatever we want. At the end of the day, we have to pay for it in one big expense, but that is fine. We are okay with that."
"One of the things which bugs me about Lancope is the licensing. We understand how licensing works. Our problem is when we bought and purchased most of these Lancope devices, we did so with our sister company. Somewhere within the purchase and distribution, licensing got mixed up. That is all on Cisco, and it is their responsibility. They allotted some of our sister company's equipment to us, and some of our equipment to them. To date, they have never been able to fix it."
"​Licensing is done by flows per second, not including outside (in traffic)."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise52
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
Regarding cost, for the Bangladesh context, Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a little bit high-priced because we are a developing country, making it tough to manage affordable solutions. However, ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
Several features often look very promising during evaluation or implementation but end up being used only lightly in day-to-day operations. Advanced reporting and scheduled compliance reports look ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Stealthwatch?
My main use case for Cisco Secure Network Analytics has been network visibility and anomaly-based threat detection within the enterprise environment. In security operations and VAPT-related activit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiNDR?
Using Fortinet FortiNDR as a bundle is cost-effective, providing a complete package of tools.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiNDR?
I would like to see the inclusion of sandboxing in the bundling. Currently, sandbox is not included in our package.
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiNDR?
I use Fortinet FortiNDR ( /products/fortinet-fortindr-reviews ) for its Network Detection features, primarily with FortiGate ( /products/fortinet-fortigate-reviews ) on-premises. However, I do not ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Fortinet FortiNDR and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.