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Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs Darktrace comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Darktrace
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (9th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (1st), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (11th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (9th), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (4th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (4th), AI Observability (9th)
 

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 Darktrace is 11.5%, down from 14.1% 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 (%)
Darktrace11.5%
Cisco Sourcefire SNORT3.1%
Other85.4%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2772102 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AM
Technical Consultant - Unix Platform Services at BITS AND BYTE IT CONSULTING PVT LTD
Consistent threat hunting and anomaly detection deliver valuable insights for network security management
In terms of improvement for Darktrace, pricing is the main concern. Pricing bothers me and this is one of the major factors when choosing a solution. When we get feedback from customers, that's the only felt need. When we factor in Darktrace, we do it only limited. We put it on where the perimeters and connections are, but still, some gray areas are left out, especially if we have multiple branches. We need Darktrace on each branch to get the data out, and I suggest having some kind of a centralized product that gets data from multiple sources to aggregate and provide the data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution can be integrated with some network electors like Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco ISE, and Active Directory to provide the client with authentication certificates."
"In general, the features are all great. However, if I need to take hardware for ASA, because they need to upgrade to Firepower, we want to create rules. For that, most of the time we go to the command line. Right now Firepower is working really hard on the grid. You can apply all those rules to the grid. Even if you want to monitor the logs, for example, the activity will tell you which particular user has been blocked because of that rule. Firepower's monitoring interface is very good, because you can see each and every piece. ASA also had it, but there you needed to type the command and be under the server to see all that stuff. In Firepower you have the possibility to go directly to the firewall. The way the monitoring is displayed is also very nice. The feature I appreciate most in Firepower is actually the grid. The grid has worked very well."
"It is quite an intelligent product."
"The URL filtering is very good and you can create a group for customized URLs."
"I like most of Cisco's features, like malware detection and URL filtering."
"The product is inexpensive compared to leading brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"Solid intrusion detection and prevention that scales easily in very large environments."
"The most valuable feature is the visibility that we have across the virtual environment."
"Darktrace is very stable, and I would rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"We have found the product to be stable and issue-free."
"One member of staff is enough for deployment and maintenance because Darkforce is AI-driven. It does a lot of things by itself."
"Darktrace provides better visibility into network risks, allowing you to take preemptive action against risky user behavior."
"Darktrace is extremely stable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it does not require human intervention to eliminate a threat."
"Regarding the autonomous response feature, I appreciate how it functions within the platform."
"The AI-based pattern is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"The main dashboard of Cisco Sourcefire SNORT could improve."
"The initial setup is a little difficult compared to other products in the market. It depends on the environment. If we are doing any migration, it might take months in a brown-field environment."
"The cloud can be improved."
"We are unhappy with technical support for this solution, and it is not as professional as what we typically expect from Cisco."
"The pricing needs to be improved. We have lots of low-budget clients around us. Budget constraints are always a deterrent in our market."
"I did not experience any pain points that required improvement. Maybe a couple of false-positives, but that's about it."
"The implementation could be a bit easier."
"Cisco Sourcefire SNORT can scale, but if you have too much, you could fill up your log files, which I consider when discussing scalability."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"Darktrace needs significant improvement in its notification capabilities."
"It is expensive, but everything else has been great so far."
"They just need to make it a little bit more accurate as far as their alerts are concerned. It does generate some false positives that you have to tune. You have to do a lot of tuning when you first get it because of the false positives, but once it is all tuned up and ready to go, it will do its thing from there."
"Its threat analyzer could be better. It should also have agents. They should improve this product by installing agents for the machine to get more visibility. Currently, they are monitoring only the network. They should also monitor the agents from inside. It should also have a better pricing plan because it is an expensive product."
"I was under impression that Darktrace's automatic blocking would be an out-of-the-box feature, but we had to integrate it with our firewall to get it to block automatically. The salesperson should be upfront and explain that you need to integrate it with your network. I would also like to see more reporting on risk. Banks in my region want to see at a glance the risk level of various assets."
"The user interface and the configuration are a bit complex and should be improved or simplified."
"Getting logs from different sources can be a challenge."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is per port and can be expensive but it does include training and support for three years."
"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."
"Licensing for this solution is paid on a yearly basis."
"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."
"We've budgeted about 50,000 Kuwaiti dinars for the solution. That is a yearly operating cost."
"It was $3,600 a month or $2,000 plus or so. I am not sure. Its licensing is pretty simple."
"The cost is moderate."
"Darktrace is pricey, but the price is reasonable for what the solution does, and it's comparable to other products."
"The pricing is quite high, estimated at around $350,000 per year."
"Our customers feel that the price of Darktrace is quite high compared to other solutions."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"It is inexpensive considering what it can do and the competition."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise29
 

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...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
Which is better - SentinelOne or Darktrace?
Which solution is better depends on which is more suitable specifically for your company. Darktrace, for example, is meant for smaller to medium-sized businesses. It is also a good option for organ...
What do you like most about Darktrace?
A very useful feature in Darktrace for real-time threat analysis is the packet inspection that analyzes the packet traffic in real time.
 

Also Known As

Sourcefire SNORT
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Irwin Mitchell, Open Energi, Wellcome Trust, FirstGroup plc, Virgin Trains, Drax, QUI! Group, DNK, CreaCard, Macrosynergy, Sisley, William Hill plc, Toyota Canada, Royal British Legion, Vitol, Allianz, KKR, AIRBUS, dpd, Billabong, Mclaren Group.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Sourcefire SNORT vs. Darktrace and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.