We performed a comparison between Tenable Nessus and Tenable SC based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Tenable SC is the winner in this comparison. Tenable SC received higher marks for its support than Tenable Nessus did. In addition, its users feel that it is the more reasonably priced solution.
"A valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to understand."
"We have around 500 virtual machines. Therefore, we conduct monthly scans and open tickets for our developers to address identified vulnerabilities. These scans cover the servers, other network equipment, and appliances in our infrastructure."
"The plug-in text information is quite useful."
"The solution is great for scanning servers."
"The vulnerability scanner is the most valuable feature."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"The results are not that bad, but the key selling point is that it is an affordable tool set."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the self-updating engine."
"The scanning part, the agent part – that's the valuable aspect."
"Very customizable with a lot of templates."
"Initial setup was pretty straightforward."
"The tool gives us fewer false positives. Compared to its competitors, the solution’s reports are more accurate."
"Their overall cost of service is pretty good."
"I found the dashboard features very useful. It made it easy to track remediation progress. I could publish dashboards to remediation teams and track the progress on the dashboards."
"The feature we've liked most recently was being able to take the YARA rules from FireEye and put them into Tenable's scan for the most recent SolarWinds exploit. That was really useful."
"The solution has a lean and easy-to-use interface that is not confusing to first-time users."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"To be honest, I haven't used it much to tell you that these are the things that should be improved. But I believe the UI should be enhanced somewhat. For example, there are two ways to find a report, and people are frequently confused as to which is the correct method for locating a full report. Sometimes they go in the opposite direction, so this is an area that may be improved."
"Some things in the user interface could be better. The user interface could allow more adjustments to plugins. The price could also be better."
"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."
"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."
"There could be an integration between Tenable Nessus and other Tenable products. It will help us manage all the solutions using one dashboard."
"Security can always be improved."
"Tenable SC could improve by making the creation of the initial reports easier that correspond to our network."
"Though the solution's technical support is responsive, they do take a lot of time, making it one of the solution's shortcomings that needs improvement."
"The solution should include compliance-based scanning."
"Deploying Tenable.sc is highly complex because it's an on-prem solution, whereas Tenable.io is cloud-based, so you can go live as soon as you log in. Tenable.sc involves significant integration with other on-prem solutions, and the deployment takes about two to three weeks with the help of a system integrator"
"The pricing is reasonable, but this could be brought down more aggressively, such as we see with Rapid7, Tenable SC's main competitor."
"The reporting needs a lot of work on the template."
"At times we have had the typical bugs."
Tenable Nessus is ranked 3rd in Vulnerability Management with 75 reviews while Tenable Security Center is ranked 1st in Vulnerability Management with 48 reviews. Tenable Nessus is rated 8.4, while Tenable Security Center is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Tenable Nessus writes "Unlimited assets for one price and quick, agentless results". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tenable Security Center writes "A security solution for vulnerability assessment with automated scans". Tenable Nessus is most compared with Qualys VMDR, Rapid7 InsightVM, Tenable Vulnerability Management, Pentera and Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, whereas Tenable Security Center is most compared with Tenable Vulnerability Management, Qualys VMDR, Rapid7 InsightVM, Horizon3.ai and Tanium. See our Tenable Nessus vs. Tenable Security Center report.
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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.
