Orca Security vs Tenable Nessus comparison

Orca Security and Tenable are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Orca Security is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.6, while Tenable is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Orca Security holds a 3.7% mindshare in VM, compared to Tenable’s 7.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Orca Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Tenable users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Tenable Nessus and Orca Security compete in the cybersecurity tools category. Orca Security seems to have the upper hand due to its agentless architecture, cloud focus, and rapid support.

Features: Tenable Nessus offers extensive vulnerability scanning, predictive prioritization, and an integration ability that supports risk management across environments. Orca Security's SideScanning technology allows agentless data collection, ranking and prioritizing vulnerabilities, and providing detailed cloud-level visibility.

Room for Improvement: Tenable Nessus could improve in reporting customization, intuitive interfaces, and reducing false positives. Orca Security could expand its on-premise integration and visualization capabilities, automatic remediation features, and enhance communication on updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tenable Nessus is mostly deployed on-premises, and feedback on technical support is mixed. Orca Security is deployed in the cloud with minimal setup and is praised for ease of use and quick support response.

Pricing and ROI: Tenable Nessus is competitively priced for smaller organizations and presents a strong ROI through its management capabilities. Orca Security is generally more expensive but justifies cost with its feature suite and value in reducing the need for multiple tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 872,655 peers since 2012

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

Mindshare comparison

As of October 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 Orca Security is 3.7%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 7.3%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Tenable Nessus	7.3%
Orca Security	3.7%
Zafran Security	1.0%
Other	88.0%

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

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.

Read full review

CHINTAN MEHTA

Cloud Security Automation Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Consolidating security tools with comprehensive cloud visibility

The documentation for Orca Security could be improved. The compliance framework also needs enhancements, especially concerning integrations with other tools like ServiceNow's vulnerability modules, which are not as mature as expected. It should also increase its capability to ingest data from other security tools like CloudSight for endpoint detection and provide real-time monitoring.

Read full review

MohammedJaffir

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"Orca provides X-ray vision into everything within the cloud properties, whereas normally, this would require multiple tools."

"I recommend Orca Security to others looking for a cloud security solution due to its seamless integration and side-scanning technology that does not hamper cloud asset performance."

"The vulnerability management does not require network scanning or agent technology, so I don't need to modify any of my products in order to do vulnerability assessments."

"The initial setup is very easy."

"I find Orca Security's CIEM feature invaluable, as it focuses on entitlement and posture management, identifying assets with older OS versions, and asset misconfiguration."

"Orca's dashboard is excellent. My team needs to be able to focus on specific areas for improvement in our cloud environment. And most recently, we've started to get good use out of sonar, the search capabilities, and the alert creation."

"The best features of Orca Security include its ability to perform a lot of security controls without requiring any installation of agents, making it very easy to set up."

"Another valuable feature with Orca, something that's not talked about enough, is its ability to rank your gaps and your tasks... You can get visibility with agents and there are a lot of ways to do that. But the ranking and the context across the entire environment, that is what is unique about Orca."

More Orca Security pros

"It provides multiple recommendations towards the remedy of vulnerabilities."

"The most valuable feature is the breadth of vulnerabilities that it finds. It's able to find across a lot of different platforms and operating systems. It's also able to combine local testing with network-based testing."

"The most valuable feature is how it scanned and detected through its database to let us know exactly what fixes we needed to put in place for the vulnerabilities. It detects and it also gives you the way to fix it."

"The most valuable features are that it's fast, it's easy to use and it provides good reports."

"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 features of Tenable Nessus include its ease of access and quick usability."

"Quick assessments, compliance scores, and results are provided without having to do agents."

"I have experience with it on my attack stations, and it's pretty good to optimize. Personally, I think Nessus is quite a good product."

More Tenable Nessus pros

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."

"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."

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"A notable limitation with Orca Security is its scanning feature. The automatic scan only runs every 24 hours, and if an alert is remediated within an hour, it still remains until the next scheduled scan."

"Orca needs improvement in snoozing or dismissing specific alarms."

"I would like to see an option to do security checks on a code level. This is possible because they have access to all of the code running in the cloud provider, and combining their site-scanning solution with that would be a nice add-on."

"The solution could improve by making the dashboards more elaborative and more descriptive."

"The main drawback in an agentless approach is that if the solution detects a virus or malware in the environment, we need to manually remove it. But from my experience with other production environments, it's not straightforward to install agents in the hope they will automatically remediate viruses, even from production environments... Ultimately, the ability to auto-remediate is something that I would like to see."

"I would like to see better customization options for security frameworks and better integration with reporting tools like Power BI or Grafana dashboards."

"Orca needs improvement in snoozing or dismissing specific alarms. Currently, snoozing dismisses all future vulnerabilities related to a CVE."

"There were a couple of times when Orca was down when I was trying to access it. I work strange hours because all of my team is in the UK right now. It was 2 a.m. on a Saturday and I was trying to log in but it wasn't working. But relative to my other security tools, Orca is definitely the most stable that I've seen."

More Orca Security cons

"The reports are okay, but the interface is a bit difficult to navigate in some cases."

"Nessus' reporting could be more user-friendly."

"You can scale Nessus to the extent that you can afford it. You need to have a license for every device you scan. As long as you can afford the increased costs, you won't have a problem scaling it."

"Tenable Nessus could improve the price."

"I have found it is sometimes difficult to control the Zoom meeting sessions. For example, it is difficult to know who is talking and when trying to mute everyone but the speaker you end up muting everyone. When using multiple screens it is laborious to find the control buttons, such as to start a session. Additionally, when a recording is done I have found it difficult to find them, there should be an easier way to retrieve them."

"The product could have unique features similar to one of its competitors."

"One area with room for improvement is instead of there just being a PDF format for output, I'd like the option of an Excel spreadsheet, whereby I could better track remediation efforts and provide reporting off of that."

"Model OS costs (and its segregation schema for individual modules)."

More Tenable Nessus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It is the cost of the visibility that you get. When you really sit down and think about what do you need to do to secure an environment with a low impact on the business, and you take a look out into the world, I think this tool is well justified around cost."

"I think their pricing model is aligned with market demand. Of course, Orca could probably better align their pricing model with the needs of smaller businesses as well as some larger-scale enterprises with millions of assets. But in all fairness, I think the Orca sales team has been accommodating and ensured that we're happy with the pricing."

"Orca Security charges are based on cloud workloads. So, it's based on workloads. If we look at one feature, it might be expensive."

"Overall, the pricing is reasonable and the discounts have been acceptable."

"Orca is very competitive when compared to the alternatives and is not the most expensive in the market, that's for sure."

"Its license is a bit expensive."

"The pricing depends on how many assets you have running in your cloud and how many environments you have. If you have a dev environment, test environment, and a production environment then it's really important that you have coverage for all of them."

"The most expensive solution is Palo Alto. They claim to be very robust. The next most expensive is Wiz, followed by Orca and all the rest."

More Orca Security pricing and cost advice

"In general, it is extremely expensive."

"Tenable Nessus is affordable."

"Tenable Nessus needs to be licensed. We own a license for the security center and that license is charged by the number of IP addresses that you can scan. You're allowed to have as many scanners as you want and there's no license for the number of scanners. We have a bunch of Nessus scanners out there, and as long as we're comfortable with staying under that IP address limit, that's really all we have to be concerned about."

"The product is free."

"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."

"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 is too expensive for each service center."

"The price is okay. I would give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."

More Tenable Nessus pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Vulnerability Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

University

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	39
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	35

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Orca Security?

It's for protection. It's an agentless tool. We don't need to install anything at a customer's premises. We can just ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Orca Security?

I really love the way Orca Security worked. A potential improvement could be additional security features for the two...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Orca Security?

We used Orca Security ( /products/orca-security-reviews ) for about two to three months until I left the company. The...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Wiz Code vs Zafran Security

Compared 32% of the time

Vulcan Cyber vs Zafran Security

Compared 14% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Zafran Security

Compared 9% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

Cymulate vs Zafran Security

Compared 3% of the time

More Zafran Security Competitors

Wiz vs Orca Security

Compared 28% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Orca Security

Compared 8% of the time

Upwind vs Orca Security

Compared 5% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Orca Security

Compared 5% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs Orca Security

Compared 4% of the time

More Orca Security Competitors

Qualys VMDR vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 11% of the time

Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 8% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon Inspector vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 6% of the time

More Tenable Nessus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

October 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Orca Security

October 2025

Download Orca Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Nessus

October 2025

Download Tenable Nessus product report

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Orca Security provides comprehensive security management with agentless visibility and SideScanning technology, ensuring efficient threat detection without performance impact.

Orca Security offers agentless visibility across multi-cloud environments, streamlining security management with features like SideScanning technology and centralized security tools. It focuses on automation, vulnerability management, and compliance checks, enhancing a company's security posture with real-time alerts and integrated threat detection. Its intuitive interface prioritizes critical issues, making it suitable for managing DevSecOps processes efficiently.

What are the key features of Orca Security?

Agentless Visibility: Gain comprehensive insights into cloud environments without deploying agents.
SideScanning Technology: Detect threats and vulnerabilities efficiently across platforms.
Comprehensive Security Management: Centralizes security across AWS, GCP, and Azure with minimal setup effort.
CIEM Feature: Enhances security posture with integrated identity and access management.
Real-Time Alerts: Provide immediate awareness of security threats and vulnerabilities.
Automation and Compliance: Streamline processes with automated vulnerability management and compliance checks.

What benefits and ROI should companies look for in Orca Security?

Centralized Management: Simplifies security operations by consolidating tools across cloud environments.
Improved Security Posture: Reduces alerts and manages threats effectively with detailed insights.
Efficient Threat Detection: Enhances response capabilities with integrated threat detection and real-time alerts.
Easy Deployment and Setup: Facilitates quick implementation without complex configurations.
Enhanced Integration: Supports seamless integration with existing security frameworks and processes.

Companies in industries such as finance, healthcare, and technology leverage Orca Security for cloud security posture management, ensuring compliance with standards and securing applications and databases. Its agentless approach provides comprehensive visibility across AWS, GCP, and Azure, enhancing risk assessment and vulnerability management without impacting asset performance.

Orca Security

Tenable Nessus provides an efficient vulnerability management system with swift deployment and comprehensive scanning capabilities, making it an ideal choice for organizations seeking to enhance their security posture through effective threat detection and mitigation strategies.

Renowned for its top-tier vulnerability detection, Tenable Nessus offers a robust platform that integrates effortlessly across systems, enhancing threat management through automation, real-time monitoring, and customizable scanning options. Its broad asset coverage, including network devices and applications, coupled with ease of deployment, positions it as a go-to option for risk assessment and compliance. Organizations value its extensive reporting features and database, although they suggest enhancements in reporting formats and false positive detection. A more intuitive interface, improved cloud support, and competitive pricing models are sought after to cater to evolving enterprise needs.

What are the key features of Tenable Nessus?

Comprehensive Vulnerability Detection: Identifies security gaps across systems and platforms.
Remedy Recommendations: Provides actionable insights for vulnerability fixes.
Predictive Prioritization: Helps in focusing on critical vulnerabilities first.
Seamless Integration: Compatible with diverse platforms for cohesive threat management.
Automation Capabilities: Streamlines routine scans and reports.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Fast Setup: Quick deployment that saves time and resources.
Cost-Effective: Affordable pricing supports budget-conscious cyber strategies.
Real-Time Monitoring: Offers continuous oversight of system health.
Extensive Reports: Detailed insights enhance decision-making processes.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and tech, Tenable Nessus is implemented for scanning internal and external networks, identifying risks, and ensuring data protection compliance. Organizations conduct regular scans to detect security vulnerabilities in servers and databases, leveraging its capabilities to strengthen their security frameworks while managing cloud infrastructures and enterprise networks efficiently.

Tenable

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

BeyondTrust, Postman, Digital Turbine, Solarisbank, Lemonade, C6 Bank, Docebo, Vercel, and Vivino

Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University

Buyer's Guide

Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus

September 2025

Free Report: Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus

Find out what your peers are saying about Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus report.

See our list of best Vulnerability Management vendors and best Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) vendors.

We monitor all Vulnerability Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.