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HackerOne vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
16th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (1st)
HackerOne
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
39th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (26th), Bug Bounty Platforms (1st), Penetration Testing Services (1st), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (15th)
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.9%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HackerOne is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 8.4%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Faizan Nehal - PeerSpot reviewer
Platform supports skill development with effective vulnerability reporting
Everything has become slower on HackerOne. I have noticed that older researchers receive all the private invites while newer ones receive fewer. The same goes for real-life events, where the same people are invited repeatedly. There are no clear guidelines for being invited to programs and conferences, and the process for receiving invitations appears arbitrary.
HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"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."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"HackerOne is larger than WebCloud and has a better reputation than BugCloud, which results in a smoother process."
"Apart from getting all the bug bounty opportunities, we also get the chance to practice in a safe environment, like a demo setup. These features are great for beginners who want to explore bug bounties in the future."
"HackerOne is larger than WebCloud and has a better reputation than BugCloud, which results in a smoother process."
"The most valuable feature of HackerOne is its variety of programs. These programs provide depth into various areas, such as mobile, API, and websites."
"It helps me to get new sales, profits, and other benefits."
"Nessus is good at finding out what nodes you have in place. It will then provide you a report, by node, of what the vulnerabilities are. It does it quickly and stealthfully."
"I have found the vulnerability assessment and the reports to be useful."
"The vulnerability scanner is the most valuable feature."
"Its initial setup was simple and straightforward."
"It gives you an unlimited IP scan."
"I find the features that are most valuable are the policies that help us identify the vulnerabilities. These policies are then used for scanning instabilities and then identifying the particular vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is website scanning."
"We looked at Tenable, Qualys and Rapid7. We found Tenable was the best of all three."
 

Cons

"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."
"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"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."
"Response time can be improved. The HackerOne Trust team can be slow to respond sometimes. They're not using AI, which could help reduce the number of duplicate reports."
"The ability to view the conversation between the triagers and the programs will be really good."
"Everything has become slower on HackerOne."
"One issue I've experienced is traffic. Many people try to participate when an opportunity with a bounty of around 1,000-15,000 dollars comes up. In this case, the first person to report the vulnerability gets the bounty. If a second person reports the same vulnerability, they are marked as duplicated instead of receiving some recognition. The second person also invested time finding the issue, so I think this can be improved."
"Everything has become slower on HackerOne. I have noticed that older researchers receive all the private invites while newer ones receive fewer."
"It would be better if they had application-level support for mobile devices. They don't have anything to scan mobile devices. Tenable Nessus doesn't have a mobile application vulnerability assessment. I also have issues with the false positive rates. The product has limited features."
"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."
"From my point of view the solution basically is not for the big enterprise."
"There could be an integration between Tenable Nessus and other Tenable products. It will help us manage all the solutions using one dashboard."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say its reporting portion."
"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. It would be nice to have something similar in Tenable Nessus Professional. We should have the capability to use local agents installed on the machines to locally check a problem."
"The reporting is a bit cumbersome."
"Scans aren't done properly and some devices aren't pinged."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is free."
"The tool is open-source and free for bug bounty hunters."
"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."
"Nessus is affordable, but its licensing model could be improved with more flexibility for adding assets."
"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."
"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."
"Its pricing is great and can't be improved. It is very cheap. It is less than 2,000 pounds a license, and you can't really ask for more. It has unlimited IPs and unlimited scans. There are no particular pricing constraints. The only additional cost is the inherent cost of the people to actually review the actual scans."
"I think the price is fairly affordable. It provides a license that is fair."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is much more competitive versus other solutions on the market."
"This solution is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
5%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HackerOne?
The cost is rated as one since there is no need to pay anything, not even a fee or commission.
What needs improvement with HackerOne?
Everything has become slower on HackerOne. I have noticed that older researchers receive all the private invites whil...
What is your primary use case for HackerOne?
My use case is similar to DuckTron. The processes I use for DuckTron are exactly the same for HackerOne. Therefore, t...
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...
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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
HackerOne Assets, HackerOne Pentesting Services, HackerOne Security Assessments, HackerOne Vulnerability Management
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Anthropic, Crypto.com, General Motors, GitHub, Goldman Sachs, Uber, and the U.S. Department of Defense
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about HackerOne vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.