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Pentera vs Tenable Nessus comparison

 

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

Pentera
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Penetration Testing Services (2nd), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (1st)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Pentera and Tenable Nessus aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Pentera is designed for Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) and holds a mindshare of 30.4%, up 27.2% compared to last year.
Tenable Nessus, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 10.2% mindshare, down 13.4% since last year.
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Richard Marlow - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good features and helps monitor the status of ransomware protection in an organization
The tool is quite scalable. There's a one-to-one relationship between the engine and how many scans we can do. We can only do one scan with one engine. We had some issues around the password assessments because we added a lot of users. It took a long time. I rate the scalability a seven out of ten. We have three users in our organization.
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The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly.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

"The tool showed us that our ransomware protection wasn’t working on some machines."
"The product is easy to use."
"The vulnerability scanner, exploit achievements, and remediation actions are all great."
"The most valuable feature of Pentera is that you can do continuous vulnerability assessment, which is automated."
"The platform's most valuable features are credential management and vulnerability management."
"Maybe there are some remediation steps on the website, we can mask sensitive information on the website better."
"What I like the most about Pentera is its solution-oriented approach."
"The solution is SaaS-based. From a cloud perspective, it has Pentera Surface and Pentera Core. The Core is the on-prem deployed solution, while the Surface is the cloud-hosted solution that scans your public infrastructure. From the Surface perspective, the most valuable feature so far has been the attack surface mapping."
"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."
"The ease of use is the primary valuable feature. This specific version is very straightforward. I like the ability to modify it and configure it based on the different policies."
"Once you get past the initial implementation, the solution is very stable."
"The scanning and reporting features are the most valuable aspects of Tenable Nessus."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"With the Tenable Nessus enterprise edition, you have unlimited licenses to scan the device."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is website scanning."
"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."
 

Cons

"Pentera's general dashboards could be improved and made more specific in terms of vulnerabilities that I'm discovering."
"The automated penetration testing features must be improved."
"One of the big issues we have is that the tool has an additional license for compromised credentials. Suppose compromised credentials for any of your domains appear in leaks, dumps, or are being sold. In that case, they try to aggregate that data and highlight that, for example, ten users appeared in recent dumps as compromised credentials. However, they don't provide much information about where those compromises came from or their source information, probably to protect their sources."
"There is room for improvement in virtualization compatibility."
"The price could be improved."
"One area for product improvement could be the inclusion of a dashboard to cover multiple branches and subsidiaries, allowing for centralized monitoring."
"The vulnerability scanner, exploit achievements, and remediation actions are all great."
"Maybe scalability. I know that the Pentera right now is high level in order to scan big deals over 500 IPs and not less, and not less. That can be more granular. This will be useful."
"Lacks some penetration testing-related services."
"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."
"They could make their reporting a little better."
"The reporting feature needs to be improved."
"Tenable Nessus could improve the price."
"Tenable Nessus is not feasible for a large company."
"We feel the solution's technical support to be very bad."
"I would like to see more on the automation side."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not that expensive, but it could be more cost-effective."
"We have to pay a yearly licensing cost for Pentera."
"The product's cost is reasonable. I rate the pricing a three out of ten."
"The tool is relatively cheap."
"The solution is expensive."
"There is an annual license required to use this solution."
"We incurred a single cost for a perpetual license, although I cannot comment on the price as this is above my management level."
"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."
"One problem with Tenable is its pricing policy. Optimal results can be achieved with Greenbone Solutions which has much more friendly pricing policies."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is too expensive for each service center."
"The price is high for the solution. There are free tools with similar functionality available. The solution cost approximately $3,500."
"We pay approximately $2,500 on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 and IP management need improvement. When the IP is imported into a system, we cannot withdraw or revoke the license.
What is your primary use case for Pentera?
I am using the OpenIntra solution for pentesting and managing candidates in my environment. I also use this solution for house customers.
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. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid...
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 the program is such that if a company should desire to handle the installation t...
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 address identified vulnerabilities. These scans cover the servers, other network equi...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blackstone Group Caterpillar Apria Healthcare Taylor Vinters Sandler Capital Management Drawbridge BNP Paribas British Red Cross
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentera vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.