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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management 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
27th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (6th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th), Microsoft Security Suite (22nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.6%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 3.1%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 9.8%, down from 13.2% 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.
TakayukiUmehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Ease of management and integration supports operations, but has high resource consumption
A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products. I appreciate that I can click on a server in the Defender Console, notice a risk, and retrieve all necessary information. Speed is a key feature as it is very quick to administer and allows for manual configuration from the portal.
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."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"The product’s most valuable features are compliance, recommendations, and inventories."
"The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources."
"The solution helps identify threats and vulnerabilities."
"The solution is highly scalable."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides regular advisories and recommendations that help improve our security posture."
"One valuable feature is the Microsoft Security Scorecard."
"The solution is up-to-date and helps prevent zero-day attacks."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"User friendly and good dashboards."
"It also has an executive report where you don't have to provide the client all the detail for them to sift though. But if they wish to dig through the detail they can."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is vulnerability detection."
"We have done code scanning for a long period because as a company, we do DevOps as part of our development life cycle."
"The features I personally like include host discovery."
"The most valuable features of Tenable Nessus are the scanning option. Advanced scanning is highly useful. The offline config audits and application assessments are useful."
"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."
"The scanning capabilities are most valuable when compared to Nessus."
 

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."
"There is a good solution from Microsoft, however, there is a gap between Windows and Linux management."
"The automated remediations can be more specific."
"It is expensive."
"We have experienced some logging issues, including a few hours of downtime initially. Despite this, I would rate the overall stability as an eight."
"The setup phase of the product is not that easy and needs a person to have a certain level of expertise."
"Probably my only criticism would be the cost. It is expensive."
"The constant changes in the product configuration or the console setup can sometimes be challenging."
"The general support could be improved."
"The report for counters is too simple and would be improved by a dashboard."
"I would like to see more on the automation side."
"Technically, it is an excellent and the best solution available in Libya. My only concern is related to its pricing. They are an emerging company in Libya, and they need to put in some effort to provide us with very good prices so that customers can go with the best solution. Chinese companies are getting into the market here, and they're providing very cheap solutions."
"Multiple steps to create an actionable plan will be a great addition to Nessus."
"The solution should be able to support more devices."
"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."
"Scans aren't done properly and some devices aren't pinged."
"One area that has room for improvement is the reporting. I'm preparing reports for Windows and Linux machines, etc. Currently, I'm collecting three or four reports and turning them into one report. I don't know if it is possible to combine all of them in one report, but that would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The tool is a bit costly."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The solution is worth the cost. It's a good investment."
"The price is high for the solution. There are free tools with similar functionality available. The solution cost approximately $3,500."
"The price is okay. I would give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"While Tenable Nessus is a good enterprise solution, the high price would likely make it prohibitive to smaller organizations."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is too expensive for each service center."
"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."
"We incurred a single cost for a perpetual license, although I cannot comment on the price as this is above my management level."
"The price of Tenable Nessus could improve, it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

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?
I find that the pricing for Zafran aligns well with the comprehensive features it offers. The asset and user-based li...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
Zafran is a new startup. Features are continuously being added or improved. 1) Continued integrations with existing (...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
We connect this to our vulnerability scanner as input, our security tools to better determine risk, and our change ma...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
For our current usage, we do not have any complaints, but a potential improvement could be the introduction of a more...
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 Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.