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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
32nd
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (4th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (21st), Microsoft Security Suite (25th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
TakayukiUmehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Ease of management and integration supports operations, but has high resource consumption
A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products. I appreciate that I can click on a server in the Defender Console, notice a risk, and retrieve all necessary information. Speed is a key feature as it is very quick to administer and allows for manual configuration from the portal.
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The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly.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

"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"The solution is highly scalable."
"The solution helps identify threats and vulnerabilities."
"The recommendations, scores, and steps to remediate actions are highly useful."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"The product's stability is very high...The scalability of the product is amazing."
"The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is vulnerability detection."
"The features of Tenable Nessus that I have found most valuable are its reliability and its ability to collate a dependable output, where we are able to get the same vulnerability when we test manually. The output is quite reliable."
"Tenable Nessus has provided increased visibility across the organization's servers."
"It's scalable."
"Makes ransomware checking and OS auditing and implementation relatively easy."
"Once you get past the initial implementation, the solution is very stable."
"It does exactly what you expect it to do, and its pricing is great. We couldn't really ask for a better deal."
"Overall Zoom is a good solution."
 

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 automated remediations can be more specific."
"The setup phase of the product is not that easy and needs a person to have a certain level of expertise."
"The constant changes in the product configuration or the console setup can sometimes be challenging."
"The technical support takes too much time to resolve tickets."
"Integration can be improved."
"The worst aspect is the refresh rate of the dashboard."
"It is challenging to extract and customize reports from the system."
"The product is not stable; it is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU, which makes it slow."
"I would like to have a management option after the network scanning."
"The reporting feature needs to be improved."
"Pricing is one of the most important features, and it is something that they can improve on."
"In Nessus Professional, the main drawback was that we could have a single-user login password. So it could be better in terms of security."
"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."
"It wasn't very clear how the scripts are running the scans. There's information about the script but it's not straightforward. The script information for each of the plugins should be available, but it doesn't give us straightforward direct information about how it was executed. That needs to be more clear."
"It would be a good idea if they have a simulation of attacks or a use case for finding a new vulnerability or dealing with a zero-day attack."
"The features are limited when it comes to scanning network devices for vulnerabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The tool is a bit costly."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"When comparing the price of Tenable Nessus to other similar solutions, such as Acunetix, Tenable Nessus is not as expensive. It is averagely priced in the market. We pay for the solution annually."
"The is a free version of Tenable Nessus available."
"The cost is around $4,300 per year. Use is unlimited. You don't pay more if you want to use it for another IP."
"Tenable Nessus is affordable."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is much more competitive versus other solutions on the market."
"We incurred a single cost for a perpetual license, although I cannot comment on the price as this is above my management level."
"Nessus is affordable, but its licensing model could be improved with more flexibility for adding assets."
"I would like to see better discounts."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
7%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
40%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

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?
Pricing for Zafran Security is not expensive. We have a contract for five years, and the cost is lower than other too...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
I would like to see an integration with Check Point firewalls. It's essential for us and they are currently working o...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
We use Zafran Security for threat prioritization. We establish priority to understand which risks should be patched o...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
For our current usage, we do not have any complaints, but a potential improvement could be the introduction of a more...
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
Information Not Available
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.