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Pentera vs Tenable Nessus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Penetration Testing Services (1st), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (1st)
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Pentera is 4.3%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 12.5%, down from 15.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly.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 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."
"Pentera has many authentic features."
"What I like the most about Pentera is its solution-oriented approach."
"The vulnerability scanner, exploit achievements, and remediation actions are all great."
"Maybe there are some remediation steps on the website, we can mask sensitive information on the website better."
"Pentera has many authentic features."
"The product is easy to use."
"Tenable Nessus is one of the best vulnerability assessment tools, that I know."
"My favorite part about Nessus is that you can customize the tool to scan exactly what you want. Microsoft releases new patches monthly on Patch Tuesday, and a lot of companies track that date. I set up Nessus for the day after Patch Tuesday to see which devices have already pushed those updates from Microsoft, so we can stay updated."
"It notifies us of vulnerabilities as they arise, allowing us to respond quickly without manual intervention."
"The support has been really cooperative."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the self-updating engine."
"The solution is easy to understand for users because instructions are included on the platform."
"We have done code scanning for a long period because as a company, we do DevOps as part of our development life cycle."
"Tenable Nessus is an absolutely stable and fantastic product."
 

Cons

"The licensing and IP management need improvement. When the IP is imported into a system, we cannot withdraw or revoke the license."
"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."
"One area for product improvement could be the inclusion of a dashboard to cover multiple branches and subsidiaries, allowing for centralized monitoring."
"There is room for improvement in virtualization compatibility."
"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."
"The automated penetration testing features must be improved."
"The licensing and IP management need improvement."
"Pentera's general dashboards could be improved and made more specific in terms of vulnerabilities that I'm discovering."
"From my point of view the solution basically is not for the big enterprise."
"The tool needs to upgrade asset tracking."
"Tenable Nessus is not feasible for a large company."
"Multiple user access would be an area for improvement from a user-access perspective. A role-based access control feature would be great because at present, there is a limitation with only one account. If that account gets compromised or gets locked, then we will encounter problems."
"They should improve the I/O reporting and the customized spreadsheet export feature."
"They need more flexible pricing."
"We'd like to see more integration potential within the solution."
"The report for counters is too simple and would be improved by a dashboard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's cost is reasonable. I rate the pricing a three out of ten."
"The tool is relatively cheap."
"It's not that expensive, but it could be more cost-effective."
"We have to pay a yearly licensing cost for Pentera."
"We incurred a single cost for a perpetual license, although I cannot comment on the price as this is above my management level."
"In general, it is extremely expensive."
"The price of Tenable Nessus could improve, it is expensive."
"Its pricing is great and can't be improved. It is very cheap. It is less than 2,000 pounds a license, and you can't really ask for more. It has unlimited IPs and unlimited scans. There are no particular pricing constraints. The only additional cost is the inherent cost of the people to actually review the actual scans."
"The newer tools are quite pricey. There is a case of some fine tuning that can be done in terms of licensing. The IP based licensing that is offered makes the tool very expensive. If they want the IT industry to adopt it, the price should be looked at."
"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."
"I would like to see better discounts."
"I think the price is fairly affordable. It provides a license that is fair."
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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
41%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
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?
One area for product improvement could be the inclusion of a dashboard to cover multiple branches and subsidiaries, allowing for centralized monitoring.
What is your primary use case for Pentera?
Our customers use the product to validate their security environment, ensuring that vulnerabilities within the network are identified and addressed.
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...
 

Learn More

 

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.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.