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Tenable Nessus vs Tenable Vulnerability Management comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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
27th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (6th)
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
Tenable Vulnerability Manag...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

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 Tenable Nessus is 9.8%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Vulnerability Management is 6.3%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Nov 24, 2021
 

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.
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The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly.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.
Mani Bommisetty - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines vulnerability management with excellent reporting and potential AI integration
Tenable is user-friendly and excels in reporting. It allows me to easily fetch and schedule reports. The software's discovery feature aids in strengthening our security posture. The single-sensor installation process on various operating systems is smooth, unlike Rapid7, which requires different versions for separate systems. Furthermore, Tenable enables vulnerability management through potential AI integration that consolidates efforts and resolves multiple vulnerabilities simultaneously.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"We looked at Tenable, Qualys and Rapid7. We found Tenable was the best of all three."
"The solution is very stable."
"The solution can scale well."
"The most valuable feature is the installation of Tenable which is incredibly easy."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is real-time monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the self-updating engine."
"The results are not that bad, but the key selling point is that it is an affordable tool set."
"Tenable Nessus has a good performance, is very user-friendly, and is easy to use."
"The stability is commendable, and I would rate Tenable ten out of ten."
"I would rate Tenable's dashboards and reporting capabilities for illustrating security posture a nine out of ten, with ten being the best."
"Tenable is user-friendly and excels in reporting."
"The dashboard is pretty intuitive, and it lets you do a drill-down analysis of each vulnerability. That is something that brings a lot of value to the organization."
"Tenable.io Vulnerability Management is an easy-to-use product. I"
"There is no burden of updating or upgrading this solution."
"The product is easy to use."
"They are on a good trajectory as a company and investing in R&D in the right ways."
 

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 reports are okay, but the interface is a bit difficult to navigate in some cases."
"The problems I faced with Tenable Nessus were related to its dashboard's customization capabilities and its ability to provide data to third-party sources."
"Tenable Nessus could improve by having more steady updates which will reduce the vulnerabilities."
"Tenable Nessus could improve the price."
"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."
"This is still a maturing product. Tenable is only a scanner for one ability, while other solutions like Rapid7 have more tools for verification. We still have to manually verify to see if the vulnerability is a false positive or not."
"There is room for improvement in finishing the transition to the cloud. We'd like to see them keep on improving the Tenable.io product, so that we can migrate to it entirely, instead of having to keep the Tenable.sc on-prem product."
"The reporting was never great in Tenable Vulnerability Management, so, in my company, we imported all the data into Ivanti RiskSense to start using it for reporting."
"They've been able to think about everything in terms of where the world is going and the type of assets that you've got. They've everything sorted out in that aspect, but you have to pay for most of the other components that they've got to give you complete visibility across your tech surface. If it already had those capabilities in-built, without having to add them on to take advantage of them, it would be a very compelling value proposition."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"I would rate it four out of ten. For startups, freelancers, or companies between startup and midsize, Tenable is recommended. However, for midsize or enterprise-level companies, I would not prefer it."
"The stability has room for improvement."
"The solution must provide penetration testing."
"We'd like to see a bit more user-friendliness."
"It would be helpful if Tenable could be more clear with regard to everything the solution can and cannot do with the particular license that you have."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We have a subscription, the licensing fees are paid yearly, and I am using the latest version."
"The is a free version of Tenable Nessus available."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is much more competitive versus other solutions on the market."
"Cost-wise, it's an affordable tool."
"The pricing is much more manageable versus other products."
"The price is okay. I would give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"There is an annual license required to use this solution."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Tenable charges around $40 per device."
"The product costs us around $137,000 annually for 4000 to 5000 assets."
"Tenable.io Vulnerability Management's pricing solution model isn't great."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten. It is in the middle."
"Yearly payments are to be made toward the licensing cost of the product. It is neither a cheap nor an expensive product."
"The total cost we pay for this solution is over 45K. This is for a large education organization."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high price, I rate the pricing an eight. So, it is a pretty expensive solution."
"Compared to other VM solutions, Tenable.io Vulnerability Management is expensive."
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Answers from the Community

NC
Nov 24, 2021
Nov 24, 2021
Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment solution that is both easy to deploy and easy to manage. The design of the program is such that if a company should desire to handle the installation themselves, they would be able to do so. The updates that the program requires to keep up-to-date take up a large portion of the setup time. Tenable Nessus can be deployed in under an hour. The speed o...
See 2 answers
DG
Nov 7, 2021
Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment solution that is both easy to deploy and easy to manage. The design of the program is such that if a company should desire to handle the installation themselves, they would be able to do so. The updates that the program requires to keep up-to-date take up a large portion of the setup time. Tenable Nessus can be deployed in under an hour. The speed of an organization’s internet can impact how quickly the deployment will go. Furthermore, once it has been set up, only a small management team is necessary for maintenance. Tenable Nessus is an incredibly important program that provides businesses and organizations with robust protection. This ease of deployment and management gives it an edge over the competition. Tenable.io Vulnerability Management is basically comparable to Tenable Nessus in regards to setup and management. It is relatively straightforward to set up. A single person could deploy it in a non-business setting in a matter of hours. The setup can be handled without requiring a business to rely on the help of outside consultants. As with Tenable Nessus, a small team of two or three people is all that is necessary to manage the solution. Organizations can save a great deal of time and resources by choosing to utilize this solution. Tenable Nessus is a solution with good scalability. This can be accomplished with relative ease. However, the load that it can handle makes it a poor fit for larger organizations. At a certain point, the farther up you scale it, the more the solution quality diminishes. Tenable.io Vulnerability Management is able to offer a much higher level of scalability. It is typically used without trouble by organizations with many thousands of users. As with Tenable Nessus, the process is relatively simple. Conclusion: The actual difference in time and ease as far as deploying Tenable Nessus versus Tenable.io Vulnerability Management is negligible and cannot truly set one apart from the other. Ease of management is another area where these two solutions are very similar. A major difference between them is their scalability. While both can be scaled relatively easily, Tenable.io Vulnerability Management is able to handle a higher level of scalability, with the diminishment of quality being a far lesser concern than is the case with Tenable Nessus.
Jairo Willian Pereira - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 24, 2021
Both, but I prefer Nessus Pro (costs and you can define out-of-band your better presentation/xLAP platform). Tenable.io has its facilities and extra plugins/views/analytics, but nothing that can't be externally performed by another ETL/presentation tool (for a fraction of cost, sometimes using free toolings like Pentaho, OpenRefine, OBIEE and others).
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

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...
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...
What needs improvement with Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?
I would suggest HP WebInspect as a better option than Tenable.io. My current client doesn't have access to it. Howeve...
What advice do you have for others considering Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?
I would rate it four out of ten. For startups, freelancers, or companies between startup and midsize, Tenable is reco...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Tenable.io
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Global Payments AU/NZ
Find out what your peers are saying about Tenable Nessus vs. Tenable Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.