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Barracuda Vulnerabitlity Manager vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
18th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (2nd)
Barracuda Vulnerabitlity Ma...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
39th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.8%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Vulnerabitlity Manager is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 8.8%, down from 13.0% 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.
César Ibáñez - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly scalable and easy-to-use solution that helps identify vulnerabilities
The time taken for a scan is too long. I tried to scan a website, and it took me ten hours. The report was sent to me two days later. The reports must be more specific to help us understand what we should do to mitigate the problem. There is not a lot of documentation on how to manage all the features of the product.
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

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"The solution is very easy to use."
"A valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to understand."
"Ease of reviewing scores, identifying vulnerabilities, and getting information on them."
"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."
"Among the most valuable features are scanning for vulnerabilities and the reporting. The reporting templates are okay. I like that I can see all the hosts with different vulnerabilities."
"It's scalable."
"Scanners and reports using CIS templates ("de-facto" standard, easy to fix and to locate correction tips at documentation), tests against cloud providers, database profiles, several types of telecom devices, and others highly customizable scans."
"Easy to set up vulnerability scanner with good stability and a responsive technical support team."
"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."
 

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"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."
"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 must be more specific to help us understand what we should do to mitigate the problem."
"The price could be more reasonable. I used the free Nessus version in my lab with which you can only scan 16 IP addresses. If I wanted to put it in the lab in my network at work, and I'm doing a test project that has over 30 nodes in it, I can't use the free version of Nessus to scan it because there are only 16 IP addresses. I can't get an accurate scan. The biggest thing with all the cybersecurity tools out there nowadays, especially in 2020, is that there's a rush to get a lot of skilled cybersecurity analysts out there. Some of these companies need to realize that a lot of us are working from home and doing proof of concepts, and some of them don't even offer trials, or you get a trial and it is only 16 IP addresses. I can't really do anything with it past 16. I'm either guessing or I'm doing double work to do my scans. Let's say there was a license for 50 users or 50 IP addresses. I would spend about 200 bucks for that license to accomplish my job. This is the biggest complaint I have as of right now with all cybersecurity tools, including Rapid7, out there, especially if I'm in a company that is trying to build its cybersecurity program. How am I going to tell my boss, who has no real budget of what he needs to build his cybersecurity program, to go spend over $100,000 for a tool he has never seen, whereas, it would pack the punch if I could say, "Let me spend 200 bucks for a 50 user IP address license of this product, do a proof of concept to scan 50 nodes, and provide the reason for why we need it." I've been a director, and now I'm an ISO. When I was a director, I had a budget for an IT department, so I know how budgets work. As an ISO, the only thing that's missing from my C-level is I don't have to deal with employees and budgets, but I have everything else. It's hard for me to build the program and say, "Hey, I need these tools." If I can't get a trial, I would scratch that off the list and find something else. I'm trying to set up Tenable.io to do external PCI scans. The documentation says to put in your IP addresses or your external IP addresses. However, if the IP address is not routable, then it says that you have to use an internal agent to scan. This means that you set up a Nessus agent internally and scan, which makes sense. However, it doesn't work because when you use the plugin and tell it that it is a PCI external, it says, "You cannot use an internal agent to scan external." The documentation needs to be a little bit more clear about that. It needs to say if you're using the PCI external plugin, all IP addresses must be external and routable. It should tell the person who's setting it up, "Wait a minute. If you have an MPLS network and you're in a multi-tenant environment and the people who hold the network schema only provide you with the IP addresses just for your tenant, then you are not going to know what the actual true IP address that Tenable needs to do a PCI scan." I've been working on Tenable.io to set up PCI scans for the last ten days. I have been going back and forth to the network thinking I need this or that only to find out that I'm teaching their team, "Hey, you know what, guys? I need you to look past your MPLS network. I need you to go to the edge's edge. Here's who you need to ask to give me the whitelist to allow here." I had the blurb that says the plugin for external PCI must be reachable, and you cannot use an internal agent. I could have cut a few days because I thought I had it, but then when I ran it, it said that you can't run it this way. I wasted a few hours in a day. In terms of new features, it doesn't require new features. It is a tool that has been out there for years. It is used in the cybersecurity community. It has got the CV database in it, and there are other plugins that you could pass through. It has got APIs you can attach to it. They can just improve the database and continue adding to the database and the plugins to make sure those don't have false positives. If you're a restaurant and you focus on fried chicken, you have no business doing hamburgers."
"Multiple steps to create an actionable plan will be a great addition to Nessus."
"I would like to see more on the automation side."
"They could make their reporting a little better."
"Tenable Nessus could improve reporting and information sharing. It would be helpful if we could share the reports and have a little bit better flexibility in the reporting of the data."
"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."
"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."
"We use credentialed scans. They need more permissions and more changes or settings on Windows and Linux."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The product is free."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"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."
"We have a subscription, the licensing fees are paid yearly, and I am using the latest version."
"Nessus is affordable, but its licensing model could be improved with more flexibility for adding assets."
"The solution is worth the cost. It's a good investment."
"Tenable Nessus is affordable."
"The solution has a single price for unlimited assets."
"The product is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
No data available
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
The current pricing of Zafran Security is fair overall. They were good to work with to accommodate our organization w...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvement...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
Zafran Security is helping reduce the amount of critical vulnerabilities in our environments that require prompt reme...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Vulnerabitlity Manager?
The time taken for a scan is too long. I tried to scan a website, and it took me ten hours. The report was sent to me...
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
Ikea, Pizza Hut, Hilton
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys, Wiz, Tenable and others in Vulnerability Management. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.