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Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) vs Tenable Nessus 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 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
6.0
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (2nd)
 

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 2.4%, up 2.2% compared to last year.
Tenable Nessus, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 4.1% mindshare, down 9.5% since last year.
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM)2.4%
Qualys VMDR10.5%
Rapid7 InsightVM8.8%
Other78.3%
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Nessus4.1%
Wiz5.0%
Qualys VMDR4.2%
Other86.7%
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
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; 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."
"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature."
"Tenable Nessus has provided increased visibility across the organization's servers."
"The most valuable features of Tenable Nessus include its ease of access and quick usability."
"Overall, the solution is a better tool than Qualys."
"The solution makes ransomware checking and OS auditing and implementation relatively easy."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the self-updating engine."
"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."
"I would definitely recommend this solution; it's the best that I've used so far."
"We have around 500 virtual machines. Therefore, we conduct monthly scans and open tickets for our developers to address identified vulnerabilities. These scans cover the servers, other network equipment, and appliances in our infrastructure."
 

Cons

"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
"The inventory management function in this solution needs improvement."
"The support from Tenable Nessus is okay. However, they are sometimes slow and can take days to respond."
"The problems I faced with Tenable Nessus were related to its dashboard's customization capabilities and its ability to provide data to third-party sources."
"The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly."
"The price could be reduced."
"The product must be more comprehensive."
"I think the reporting templates could be improved with Tenable Nessus."
"There should be a possibility to install agents on scanned machines. Tenable IO provides the capability of using local agents to check local problems, but this feature is not there in Tenable Nessus Professional."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is based on the number of endpoints, so it's more subscription-based."
"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."
"The is a free version of Tenable Nessus available."
"I rate the product's price seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The pricing is much more manageable versus other products."
"Nessus Manager is not an expensive product. It has its limitations, but the pricing reflects that. We have a yearly subscription."
"The price is reasonable."
"We paid about six thousand dollars per license."
"I think the price is fairly affordable. It provides a license that is fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Retailer
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

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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, Horizon3.ai, Tenable and others in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.