Amazon Inspector vs Tenable Nessus comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Tenable are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.3, while Tenable is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 3.0% mindshare in VM, compared to Tenable’s 9.4% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Tenable users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Tenable Nessus and Amazon Inspector are critical tools in the vulnerability assessment category. Users express higher satisfaction with Tenable Nessus for its robust feature set, whereas Amazon Inspector is favored for its integration capabilities and scalability, especially in AWS environments.

Features: Tenable Nessus offers comprehensive vulnerability scanning, continuous monitoring, and extensive plugin support, catering to various security issues. Amazon Inspector automates vulnerability management for AWS environments and seamlessly integrates with AWS services, making it appealing for cloud operations. Its ability to automatically assess compliance aspects distinguishes it from the more network-centric Nessus.

Room for Improvement: Tenable Nessus could improve in its cloud-specific integration capabilities, as it is more network-focused. The user interface might be simplified for better user experience. Pricing models could be more flexible. Amazon Inspector could enhance its feature set outside AWS environments to appeal to a broader audience. Improvements in user interface design could help users more easily navigate the tool. Enhanced support for hybrid cloud environments would increase its versatility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tenable Nessus is recognized for its straightforward deployment process, making it suitable for businesses that need minimal disruption. Its customer service is more personalized, benefiting direct user interactions. Amazon Inspector benefits from native AWS integration, which simplifies setup for AWS users, and the broad support infrastructure from AWS enhances customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Tenable Nessus is known for competitive pricing with substantial feature offerings, though it may involve higher initial setup costs. Amazon Inspector's pay-as-you-go model aligns costs with usage, beneficial for dynamic AWS environments. The long-term ROI potential for Inspector is significant due to its integration and automation benefits, especially for businesses heavily relying on AWS.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Inspector vs. Tenable Nessus Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Inspector vs. Tenable Nessus

June 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

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.7%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Inspector is 3.0%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 9.4%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions

I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.

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John D'Arcy

Co-Founder, Professional AWS Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Automated vulnerability assessments continuously enhance security

The most valuable features probably are the ability to do automated vulnerability assessments, which it does with Amazon Inspector version two. It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities. This allows me to pinpoint potential security vulnerabilities and provide actionable recommendations relatively quickly. Larger enterprises usually use Inspector to gather all the vulnerabilities, the CVEs, across all accounts in an AWS organization. The enterprises I work for typically have many accounts in their organization, such as thousands of accounts where I am at the moment. It is a way to gather the vulnerabilities that are present on EC2 instances, container images, and Lambda functions.

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HarshBhardiya

SOC Engineer at Just Dial Limited

Provided increased visibility across the organization's servers

The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly. Additionally, the documentation is not well-organized, which can be confusing when searching for solutions or specific information related to Tenable Nessus Professional. The reporting feature could be improved by allowing users to create their own templates instead of relying on predefined ones.

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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

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon Inspector is the categorization of findings, which filters vulnerabilities by instance, container image, container repository, and Lambda function."

"The scalability of the solution itself is unparalleled."

"The findings dashboards are neat and easy to understand, offering clear demarcations for different types of findings and detailed insights into specific vulnerabilities and their associated instances. It is not a place where everything is dumped together. It offers an easy-to-understand layout."

"I recommend Amazon Inspector because it allows the automation of processes and requires less manual monitoring."

"Amazon Inspector is highly stable, rated ten out of ten, and this stability impacts business security and administration positively."

"It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities."

"The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset because it allows us to centralize data from various AWS services. We can integrate third-party tools as well. It is just a single-click option."

"The vulnerability discovery is valuable, and they also rank those vulnerabilities for you. So, you could rapidly attack some of the higher, severe vulnerabilities as they pop up, if they do pop up."

More Amazon Inspector pros

"I have found the vulnerability assessment and the reports to be useful."

"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the dashboard. They are convenient to use."

"It gives you an unlimited IP scan."

"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is vulnerability assessments. There are a lot of threats around the world and this solution is the first to come out with detection rules."

"The scanning capabilities are most valuable when compared to Nessus."

"The reports are pretty nice and easy to understand."

"Once you get past the initial implementation, the solution is very stable."

"Tenable Nessus is an absolutely stable and fantastic product."

More Tenable Nessus pros

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."

"One area for improvement in Amazon Inspector is the automation aspect."

"The other point is that the reporting features of Inspector need improvement. For example, I am in an organization with millions of CVEs, and getting an overview of all this is challenging."

"One major area for improvement is remediation. My team works on remediating findings over time, likely using available patches. However, easier integration with Amazon's patching services would be very helpful."

"There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for other services, resulting in additional charges."

"It has a limited scope. So, AWS Inspector primarily focuses on the security of the EC2 instance. So, if your architecture includes other AWS services, then you may need to use additional tools for your comprehensive security assessment. So that is one con. Another is, like, we have a dependency on agents."

"There isn't too much to improve right now. Scanning on demand or as a part of the pipeline versus a post pipeline solution would be good, but it is not a deal breaker by any means."

"It has automated vulnerability assessment, yet I seek more flexibility in defining custom vulnerability checks tailored to my needs, which is more difficult."

"There is room for improvement in the scanning capabilities. I'd like to see broader coverage in terms of the vulnerabilities detected."

"Multiple steps to create an actionable plan will be a great addition to Nessus."

"The price and scalability of the solution could improve."

"There is room, overall, for improvement in the way it groups the workstations and the way it detects, when the vulnerability is scanned. Even when we would run a new scan, if it was an already existing vulnerability, it wouldn't put a new date on it."

"Vulnerability recommendations are outdated and not in line with industry standards."

"Tenable Nessus could improve the reporting."

"The pricing point has increased significantly in recent years. The product's pricing has roughly tripled within the last couple of years, making us reconsider renewing the license for the scanner."

"You can scale Nessus to the extent that you can afford it. You need to have a license for every device you scan. As long as you can afford the increased costs, you won't have a problem scaling it."

"From my point of view the solution basically is not for the big enterprise."

More Tenable Nessus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The pricing is very transparent and clear."

"It's priced according to market standards for its services."

"It is scaled as you go. There are probably a certain number of scans per month, and there are tiers. If you're under a certain tier, it is free. The second level is pennies, and then all the way up to like a million. So, it has a tiered pricing program. They're pretty good with your initial scanning, and there is room to scale based on being affordable, but it is fairly cheap. There are no additional costs. They pretty much think about it as a pay-per-scan type model."

"The lowest cost would be around $10 for a few small accounts, however, for thousands of accounts, it could be around $5000 to $6000 dollars per month."

"Tenable Nessus is affordable."

"There is an annual license required to use this solution."

"The product is free."

"We have a subscription, the licensing fees are paid yearly, and I am using the latest version."

"We pay approximately $2,500 on a yearly basis."

"We paid about six thousand dollars per license."

"The cost is around $4,300 per year. Use is unlimited. You don't pay more if you want to use it for another IP."

"We incurred a single cost for a perpetual license, although I cannot comment on the price as this is above my management level."

More Tenable Nessus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

26%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

The current pricing of Zafran Security is fair overall. They were good to work with to accommodate our organization w...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvement...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

Zafran Security is helping reduce the amount of critical vulnerabilities in our environments that require prompt reme...

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What do you like most about Amazon Inspector?

The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Inspector?

I manage pricing and purchase reserved instances, yet face challenges due to dependencies and lack of options for res...

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What needs improvement with Amazon Inspector?

There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for ot...

See all answers

How would you choose between Rapid7 InsightVM and Tenable Nessus?

You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. Yo...

See all answers

What's the difference between Tenable Nessus and Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?

Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment solution that is both easy to deploy and easy to manage. The design of ...

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What do you like most about Tenable Nessus?

We have around 500 virtual machines. Therefore, we conduct monthly scans and open tickets for our developers to addre...

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

June 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Inspector

June 2025

Download Amazon Inspector product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Nessus

May 2025

Download Tenable Nessus product report

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Amazon Inspector is an automated security assessment service that helps improve the security and compliance of applications deployed on AWS. Amazon Inspector automatically assesses applications for exposure, vulnerabilities, and deviations from best practices. After performing an assessment, Amazon Inspector produces a detailed list of security findings prioritized by level of severity. These findings can be reviewed directly or as part of detailed assessment reports which are available via the Amazon Inspector console or API.

Amazon Inspector security assessments help you check for unintended network accessibility of your Amazon EC2 instances and for vulnerabilities on those EC2 instances. Amazon Inspector assessments are offered to you as pre-defined rules packages mapped to common security best practices and vulnerability definitions. Examples of built-in rules include checking for access to your EC2 instances from the internet, remote root login being enabled, or vulnerable software versions installed. These rules are regularly updated by AWS security researchers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Tenable Nessus provides an efficient vulnerability management system with swift deployment and comprehensive scanning capabilities, making it an ideal choice for organizations seeking to enhance their security posture through effective threat detection and mitigation strategies.

Renowned for its top-tier vulnerability detection, Tenable Nessus offers a robust platform that integrates effortlessly across systems, enhancing threat management through automation, real-time monitoring, and customizable scanning options. Its broad asset coverage, including network devices and applications, coupled with ease of deployment, positions it as a go-to option for risk assessment and compliance. Organizations value its extensive reporting features and database, although they suggest enhancements in reporting formats and false positive detection. A more intuitive interface, improved cloud support, and competitive pricing models are sought after to cater to evolving enterprise needs.

What are the key features of Tenable Nessus?

Comprehensive Vulnerability Detection: Identifies security gaps across systems and platforms.
Remedy Recommendations: Provides actionable insights for vulnerability fixes.
Predictive Prioritization: Helps in focusing on critical vulnerabilities first.
Seamless Integration: Compatible with diverse platforms for cohesive threat management.
Automation Capabilities: Streamlines routine scans and reports.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Fast Setup: Quick deployment that saves time and resources.
Cost-Effective: Affordable pricing supports budget-conscious cyber strategies.
Real-Time Monitoring: Offers continuous oversight of system health.
Extensive Reports: Detailed insights enhance decision-making processes.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and tech, Tenable Nessus is implemented for scanning internal and external networks, identifying risks, and ensuring data protection compliance. Organizations conduct regular scans to detect security vulnerabilities in servers and databases, leveraging its capabilities to strengthen their security frameworks while managing cloud infrastructures and enterprise networks efficiently.

Tenable

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

betterment, caplinked, flatiron, university of nutri dame

Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Inspector vs. Tenable Nessus

June 2025

Free Report: Amazon Inspector vs. Tenable Nessus

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