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Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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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 Vulnerability Managem...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (11th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (22nd)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) is designed for Risk-Based Vulnerability Management and holds a mindshare of 2.0%, down 2.4% compared to last year.
Tenable Nessus, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 3.6% mindshare, down 7.2% since last year.
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM)2.0%
Qualys Exposure Management9.7%
Tenable Security Center6.6%
Other81.7%
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Nessus3.6%
Wiz4.7%
Qualys Exposure Management4.0%
Other87.7%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

AshishPaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Self-employed at Self-employed
Offers contextual prioritization and risk-based remediation of vulnerability
An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite. There are a lot of GRC suites available, like Archer, MetricStream, Rsam, Protiviti, for example. So how would a solution like this work if my company has already invested thousands or maybe millions in a GRC solution? Do I still need it and how does it fit into an existing SAP environment? There could be interoperability, having more data sources, integrating Splunk, Qualys, FireEye, Rapid7, Carbon Black. I'm sure all that can be done to an extent, with a little more insight and a little more accuracy on the industry numbers and trends. I'd like the solution to offer any sort of assistance in any way with the remediation part, not just identification of vulnerability risk, and that is second.
MohammedJaffir - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at Cipheroot Cybersecurity Solutions
Has enabled me to reduce false positives and perform deep credential auditing with seamless integrations
I mostly use the configuration audit feature for the audit configuration as a scan policy, and I will use it for credential audit, which helps me scan credentials access such as local administrator or root access, performing a deeper and more accurate check of local configuration settings and file systems, making it a highly recommended feature. Regarding integration capabilities, we can integrate Tenable Nessus with SIM tools such as Splunk, IBM QRadar, and Azure Sentinel, as well as with ticketing systems such as ServiceNow, Jira, and Slack. There is no complexity as it is very easy to integrate everything. In terms of the reporting feature, while vulnerability scanning can throw some false positives, Tenable Nessus has very few, achieving a reduction of 75% to 80% false positives with manual analysis needed. We can generate standard Nessus reports that typically include host summaries and vulnerabilities by host and plugin, alongside solutions and remediation recommendations. The main benefits I get from Tenable Nessus are complete asset inventory and comprehensive attack surface management, allowing us to prioritize vulnerabilities based on risk, focusing on true risk and threat path analysis.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature."
"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature; that is what it is used for and then data from different sources can be fed into it, and they have good dashboards, risk meters, and virtualization."
"Tenable Nessus is an absolutely stable and fantastic product."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the support it provides for any new vulnerabilities quickly."
"Personally, I think Nessus is quite a good product."
"We have done code scanning for a long period because as a company, we do DevOps as part of our development life cycle."
"Vulnerability assessment is the most valuable feature in Tenable Nessus, as it provides brief details regarding the vulnerability issues we have in our network."
"The features of Tenable Nessus that I have found most valuable are its reliability and its ability to collate a dependable output, where we are able to get the same vulnerability when we test manually. The output is quite reliable."
"The solution makes ransomware checking and OS auditing and implementation relatively easy."
"You can then direct your team to create a report on the discovered vulnerabilities."
 

Cons

"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
"I face issues with Tenable Nessus sometimes due to upgrades."
"While Tenable Nessus is a good enterprise solution, the high price would likely make it prohibitive to smaller organizations."
"Remediation needs improvement. They are providing a lot of superseded KBs as remediation."
"As a vulnerability management tool, the only aspect that is weak in Tenable Nessus is reporting; the rest is very strong."
"Tenable Nessus could improve the price."
"I would like to see more on the automation side. There should be proper tools and support for automation in Tenable itself."
"We find that some devices aren't pinged and the scans aren't done properly."
"Nessus is not very good at identifying web application vulnerabilities, which means that we need to buy another product like Acunetix or EMC Networker to handle that part."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is based on the number of endpoints, so it's more subscription-based."
"Its price is high for Libya. The companies here in Libya don't have the awareness of and a good budget for cybersecurity services. If you want them to go for a product, you need to provide something different. This differentiation is related to the price. They should give about 40% to 45% discount per person on the current cost."
"The price is high for the solution. There are free tools with similar functionality available. The solution cost approximately $3,500."
"This solution is affordable."
"Nessus is affordable, but its licensing model could be improved with more flexibility for adding assets."
"When comparing the price of Tenable Nessus to other similar solutions, such as Acunetix, Tenable Nessus is not as expensive. It is averagely priced in the market. We pay for the solution annually."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The solution has free options."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Retailer
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid...
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 the program is such that if a company should desire to handle the installation t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable Nessus?
Based on my experience, the pricing for Tenable Nessus is somewhat higher, but customers still want to pay for it, so it remains acceptable. The annual price increase of six to seven percent could ...
 

Also Known As

Kenna.VM, Kenna Security, Kenna, Kenna Security Platform
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TransUnion
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys, Wiz, Horizon3.ai and others in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management. Updated: October 2026.
920,336 professionals have used our research since 2012.