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Pentera vs Tenable Security Center comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.2
Pentera automates security tests, proving valuable for retests, but rising licensing costs pose ROI challenges for some users.
Sentiment score
6.5
Tenable Security Center boosts ROI by minimizing costs, enhancing security, reducing manpower needs, and preventing costly data breaches.
Some customers consider the ROI favorable, but facing difficulties now due to changes in the licensing model, which has made it more expensive compared to last year.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
If we cannot adjust how to operate the solution, then it becomes very difficult, so hearing and initial tuning are very important.
Marketing Expert at J's communication
Through the use of Tenable Security Center, my clients achieve more efficient patching and gain visibility and understanding of security operations, leading to improved resilience and infrastructure insight.
Solution engineer at EXPERTience
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
Pentera's support team is reliable and responsive, but documentation needs updating; users rate support highly despite some inconsistency.
Sentiment score
7.4
Tenable Security Center customer support is responsive and knowledgeable, with U.S. support rated higher than the European counterpart.
When we could not resolve an issue with the vendor, we referred to them and raised a ticket, which usually resulted in good support from their team.
Head of Information Security at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Longer response times and less thorough assistance.
Solution engineer at EXPERTience
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Pentera is highly scalable with adaptable equipment requirements, earning strong satisfaction ratings across various enterprise environments.
Sentiment score
8.0
Tenable Security Center is praised for its seamless scalability, adaptability, and integration, accommodating diverse organizational needs and sizes effectively.
I can scale it extensively with the use of agents, allowing scanning in restrictive environments and loosely connected devices.
Solution engineer at EXPERTience
Scalability is a bit limited with Tenable Security Center.
Cyber Security Consultant at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Pentera is praised for high stability, with most users rating it highly despite minor initial setup concerns.
Sentiment score
8.0
Tenable Security Center is highly stable and reliable, handling large tasks efficiently with users rating its stability highly.
The stability of the solution is outstanding.
Solution engineer at EXPERTience
 

Room For Improvement

Pentera struggles with cost, licensing flexibility and needs better virtualization, dashboards, hardware support, and detailed credential information.
Users desire improved reporting, third-party integration, interface design, vulnerability handling, web scanning, pricing, support, and user-friendly features.
When the IP is imported into a system, we cannot withdraw or revoke the license.
Pre-sale manager at Nam Truong Son
It's important for Tenable to catch up on testing capabilities that are present in solutions like Qualys.
Cyber Security Consultant at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
The reports and plugins for reports and scans could benefit from enhancements.
IT Helpdesk at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Translating reports into European languages is especially relevant in Central Eastern Europe, where clients often require reports in local languages.
Solution engineer at EXPERTience
 

Setup Cost

Pentera's pricing receives mixed reviews, though many appreciate its value in effectively assessing ransomware protection.
Tenable Security Center is costly per asset, with options including subscription and perpetual licenses, generally pricier than competitors.
Tenable Security Center is quite expensive, particularly for the CEE region, causing us to lose cases due to its pricing.
Solution engineer at EXPERTience
The product is somewhat pricey, reflecting its valuable features and status as a high-quality solution in the vulnerability management market.
IT Helpdesk at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
The price of Tenable Security Center is not so high; it's relatively a cheaper solution.
Marketing Expert at J's communication
 

Valuable Features

Pentera offers automated vulnerability assessments with valued features like attack surface mapping, AI reporting, and quick, effective processes.
Tenable Security Center offers comprehensive vulnerability management with intuitive tools, strong integration, and flexible compliance for effective threat detection.
We can automate the Pentera processes by automatically creating scenarios to validate the system.
Pre-sale manager at Nam Truong Son
We obtained good reports showing when patches were closed and the details of each patch, including who executed it and everything related to the patching process until it was closed.
Head of Information Security at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most effective feature of Tenable Security Center for detecting vulnerabilities is its capability for critical mapping.
Cyber Security Consultant at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Tenable Security Center is a relatively very good solution, and I don't think it needs improvement; it's a perfect solution.
Marketing Expert at J's communication
 

Categories and Ranking

Pentera
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Penetration Testing Services (4th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (3rd), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (1st)
Tenable Security Center
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (6th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Pentera is designed for Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) and holds a mindshare of 23.2%, down 30.6% compared to last year.
Tenable Security Center, on the other hand, focuses on Risk-Based Vulnerability Management, holds 8.9% mindshare, down 16.5% since last year.
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Pentera23.2%
Cymulate15.6%
The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai13.9%
Other47.300000000000004%
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Security Center8.9%
Qualys VMDR12.1%
Rapid7 InsightVM10.5%
Other68.5%
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sabbir Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
Comprehensive attack surface coverage and real-world threat emulation strengthen security while licensing models need improvement
Comprehensive Attack Surface includes several features. Omni Attack Surface discovers, assesses, and exploits vulnerabilities across both internal networks and external assets, including cloud environments from a single platform. External Attack Surface Management (EASM) and Internal Network Validation test internal security controls and identify weaknesses within the internal network. Automated Penetration Testing features are provided through the Pentera Surface module. Surface provides automated validation and penetration testing features with a proactive, continuous, and highly realistic approach to cybersecurity validation, helping organizations understand and reduce their true cyber exposure. They have AI-based reporting that leverages AI to identify patterns of exploitability over time, aggregate results across sites, and highlight recurring weaknesses. They offer two types of reports: an elaborate technical report for CTOs and an Executive Summary for management. When customers see the reports after completing the POC, they are impressed by how detailed the technical report is, while management can understand what actions need to be taken to protect their network and infrastructure. Recent Gartner reports indicate that traditional VAPT companies perform vulnerability testing at specific times, which creates security gaps. Pentera provides continuous validation, running 24/7 in the infrastructure. This means when any vulnerability appears due to firmware upgrades, OS updates, or software changes, it can be automatically identified in real-time.
reviewer1534134 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Information Security at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized analytics have strengthened patch visibility and support efficient regulatory reporting
From my experience, I assess the product's analytics capabilities as successful. It helped us significantly with patching and managing the risk of the patching process across all our environments, including network devices with Windows and Unix systems. The product covered several environments and gave us exactly what we needed in our environment. Tenable Security Center's centralized platform helped with risk assessment and management across our IT environments. It covered the patching process, and we previously faced many issues regarding how to patch different environments, how to monitor the patching process, and whether it was successful or not. We obtained good reports showing when patches were closed and the details of each patch, including who executed it and everything related to the patching process until it was closed. This gave us good details about the process which helped us significantly in our reporting and even in audits, whether internal or external. We learned how to close audit issues safely and successfully. We used the dashboards for real-time threat insights and extracted several dashboards from Tenable Security Center. We use these dashboards in our cybersecurity dashboard and committees that we have. These dashboards are part of our committees, especially the cybersecurity committee and other committees that we attend.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pentera?
What I like the most about Pentera is its solution-oriented approach.
What needs improvement with Pentera?
The licensing model has changed from earlier versions. Previously, there was a 500 IP cap, and customers needed to buy a minimum of 500 IP and consider 500 domains. In Bangladesh, many large organi...
What is your primary use case for Pentera?
Common use cases include several features. The POC is completed before any customer goes for procurement. Once the POC is done, customers appreciate features such as comprehensive attack surface co...
What do you like most about Tenable SC?
The tool's dashboard and reporting capabilities match our company's needs since we are able to modify the basic view to create a new dashboard, and it works out very well for our needs.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable SC?
The price of Tenable Security Center is not so high; it's relatively a cheaper solution.
What needs improvement with Tenable SC?
We did conduct a long implementation which relates to what I think can be improved about Tenable Security Center. In some cases, we needed to refer back to Tenable itself, and in other cases, we ne...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blackstone Group Caterpillar Apria Healthcare Taylor Vinters Sandler Capital Management Drawbridge BNP Paribas British Red Cross
IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentera vs. Tenable Security Center and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.