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IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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)
IBM Guardium Vulnerability ...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
46th
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.0%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 8.0%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tenable Nessus8.0%
Zafran Security1.0%
IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment0.5%
Other90.5%
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.
SL
Improvements sought in database optimization while benefiting from robust security monitoring
We use the analytical functionality of Guardium, but the analytical functionality is not so powerful or flexible because it does not include the application user ID. It only includes the database user ID. To identify risky users, it does not support end users, so IBM must incorporate this feature into the built-in analytical engine of the Guardium. There is only one problem I experienced while using Guardium: the internal database of the collector is MySQL, which is not so powerful or flexible. When you make a query in a MySQL database, it takes too much time to respond. IBM should replace this MySQL database with a more powerful internal database for the logging mechanism so that Guardium can collect logging data flexibly and ensure optimization. My overall experience with Guardium is good. The only problem is that IBM must replace the internal DB, MySQL, with a more powerful enterprise-level database because enterprises use it at an enterprise level, and MySQL does not support optimally.
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."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"The reporting features are good and there are many built-in reports that can be quickly configured."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides a simple English recommendation on actions that you need to take once a vulnerability is discovered."
"The Vulnerability Assessment feature is quite stable and helps identify numerous vulnerabilities in databases."
"It helped with some of the regulatory requirements. It also helped with some of the security analytics and analysis. It was worthwhile from that perspective."
"The initial setup of Tenable Nessus is very easy."
"My favorite part about Nessus is that you can customize the tool to scan exactly what you want. Microsoft releases new patches monthly on Patch Tuesday, and a lot of companies track that date. I set up Nessus for the day after Patch Tuesday to see which devices have already pushed those updates from Microsoft, so we can stay updated."
"Overall Zoom is a good solution."
"It's scalable."
"The automatic scanner and scheduler are pretty cool."
"The most valuable features are that it's fast, it's easy to use and it provides good reports."
"The scanning and reporting features are the most valuable aspects of Tenable Nessus."
"We looked at Tenable, Qualys and Rapid7. We found Tenable was the best of all three."
 

Cons

"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."
"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 interface could be improved by having sub-groups of tests, ultimately making the process of collecting tests faster."
"There is only one problem I experienced while using Guardium: the internal database of the collector is MySQL, which is not so powerful or flexible."
"It was not as easy to use. The user-friendliness of it was somewhat lower than what I was expecting. It was also lacking in terms of the ease of the setup. There should be an automatic agent for deployment."
"Building policies is not that easy. There are some things that are turned off by default, for example, displaying values."
"One significant drawback we encounter is the tool's tendency to flag patched packages incorrectly. For instance, if a package is patched by Debian maintainers but not updated to a major or minor version, Nessus may still flag it as vulnerable based on its database. This discrepancy leads to false alarms and requires our developers, system admins, and DevOps teams to address them."
"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."
"We would like to have the option of using the solution for the cloud as well as on-premises with the same license at the same time. That would be very helpful."
"Multiple user access would be an area for improvement from a user-access perspective. A role-based access control feature would be great because at present, there is a limitation with only one account. If that account gets compromised or gets locked, then we will encounter problems."
"The tool needs to upgrade asset tracking."
"The product must be more comprehensive."
"It would be nice for the professional module to include some of the reports available in the expert module."
"Tenable Nessus could improve the reporting by adding some dashboards. The reports are a hassle at this time. Tenable.io has more detailed reports. Having a better dashboard that can show where the vulnerabilities are and be categorized would be helpful. We then could present them to upper management for a deep overview of our network posture which they do not see."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"One thing not advantageous for it was that it was a little bit more expensive. I would rate it one out of five in terms of pricing."
"The is a free version of Tenable Nessus available."
"The price is okay. I would give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"The newer tools are quite pricey. There is a case of some fine tuning that can be done in terms of licensing. The IP based licensing that is offered makes the tool very expensive. If they want the IT industry to adopt it, the price should be looked at."
"We incurred a single cost for a perpetual license, although I cannot comment on the price as this is above my management level."
"The solution has a single price for unlimited assets."
"The solution has free options."
"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."
"One problem with Tenable is its pricing policy. Optimal results can be achieved with Greenbone Solutions which has much more friendly pricing policies."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
37%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

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 needs improvement with IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment?
We use the analytical functionality of Guardium, but the analytical functionality is not so powerful or flexible beca...
What is your primary use case for IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment?
We are still using IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment. We only use IBM Guardium Data Protection and monitoring, da...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment?
We do not use IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment for data encryption or any other tool for analytics, or identity ...
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.