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Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (27th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (6th)
Rapid7 InsightVM
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (4th)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
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.
Mahmoud Elhamaymy - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable scanning and integration strengthen security infrastructure
InsightVM has a very organized GUI with ease of use. The vulnerability scans are reliable, and the credential scan is a beneficial feature. The solution is efficient and trustworthy. It's based on the CVSS risk scoring system, which is well-recognized and effective. The integration capabilities through APIs allow easy integration with existing security infrastructure.
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The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly.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 performance is good."
"The solution works well."
"You can bring in and get online to do reports fairly quickly,"
"I really love the new platform. It is really easy to understand, use, and deploy."
"most valuable features of Rapid7 InsightVM for me are creating dynamic asset tags, generating reports, and deploying the agent. The agent scans assets every four hours, providing real-time data on any devices. Although there weren't any significant new features compared to our previous tool, having both SIEM and vulnerability management handled by one tool made things easier. We could gather logs from different devices and cloud sources, and perform detailed investigations without switching tools. I haven't worked with the automation capabilities of InsightVM. For remediation prioritization, we check the vulnerability, search for solutions on open platforms, and work with different teams to apply patches after proper testing. Currently, we don’t have any AI or ASM projects assisted by InsightVM"
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The most valuable feature for me is the risk calculation based on monthly effects."
"It's very scalable."
"Tenable integrates well with other solutions such as SIEM and batch management."
"A valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to understand."
"Security is the key number because it can start to scan with a few clicks instead of credits, which is a bit complicated. So simplicity is the first advantage. Then the generated reports are well done and easy to present to management. The quality of the scan is quite good in detecting the severity. The solution has simplicity. Also, it has frequent updates so that is also a valuable feature."
"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."
"It is easy to deploy and easy to use. Its reporting is good. From this reporting, you can see the pain point in your network, which makes it easy to fix them. It is easy to understand the reports and export them."
"Tenable Nessus is an absolutely stable and fantastic product."
"Tenable Nessus is one of the best vulnerability assessment tools, that I know."
"I am impressed with the tool's vulnerability scanning."
 

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."
"It would be nice to have an additional feature that would provide reports on who has logged onto the console or who did what on the console."
"A definite improvement would be to make it easier to run ad-hoc scans without needing to assign the asset to a site or group."
"There are end-user needs and expectations that are being overlooked in the development that could be addressed by appointing a customer advisory board."
"There are certain limitations because of the product being used on a hybrid model. Rapid7 InsightVM doesn't offer a solution purely in the cloud."
"I would say that it improved our visibility, but it left things open."
"Their customer support should be improved, and the effectiveness of scans also needs to be improved."
"The authentication scan is not working."
"The solution needs to improve its vulnerability design to include CVC results."
"The price and scalability of the solution could improve."
"The reports are okay, but the interface is a bit difficult to navigate in some cases."
"The product must be more comprehensive."
"This is still a maturing product. Tenable is only a scanner for one ability, while other solutions like Rapid7 have more tools for verification. We still have to manually verify to see if the vulnerability is a false positive or not."
"The reporting feature needs to be improved."
"Model OS costs (and its segregation schema for individual modules)."
"Tenable Nessus could include a broader range of IT assets."
"There is room, overall, for improvement in the way it groups the workstations and the way it detects, when the vulnerability is scanned. Even when we would run a new scan, if it was an already existing vulnerability, it wouldn't put a new date on it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"In some cases, we procure the licenses. In some cases, the customers directly buy the license from Rapid7."
"The product is cheaper than the other similar tools available in the market."
"The tool's price is neither too high nor too low. My company needs to pay 65,000 per year. There are no additional costs apart from the licensing fees attached to the solution."
"A full license for the solution is expensive because it is at the organizational level and not by individual users."
"Pricing is reasonable because we pay according to asset usage. We can define our assets and sites according to our preference."
"It is less expensive compared to other competitors."
"The solution is a bit more reasonably priced than other products."
"Comparing the price with the value that we receive, I am not happy with it."
"I think the price is fairly affordable. It provides a license that is fair."
"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."
"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."
"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."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is too expensive for each service center."
"I would like to see better discounts."
"While Tenable Nessus is a good enterprise solution, the high price would likely make it prohibitive to smaller organizations."
"This solution is affordable."
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Answers from the Community

NC
Nov 8, 2021
Nov 8, 2021
You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid7 Insight VM is easy to understand, use, and deploy. This solution supplies many different types of valuable reporting and rarely reports false positives. Rapid7 can easily detect new devices and scan...
See 2 answers
MI
Sep 6, 2021
InsightVM - better functions on granting users different access to different asset groups.  It fits better for our company and is slightly cheaper.
Nov 8, 2021
You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid7 Insight VM is easy to understand, use, and deploy. This solution supplies many different types of valuable reporting and rarely reports false positives. Rapid7 can easily detect new devices and scan endpoints quickly for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, or missing patches. Rapid7 Insight VM will identify the risk and suggest how to resolve the problem. We would like to see the reporting improved to offer some of the options other solutions provide. Rapid7 Insight VM can be a very expensive solution - it is really only for larger enterprise accounts. Integration with other solutions would make Rapid7 Insight VM more desirable. It’s easy to combine local testing with network-based testing using Tenable Nessus, which can easily find vulnerabilities across different platforms and operating systems. Tenable Nessus will identify what nodes you have in place, then provide you with a report identifying each vulnerability found by node. It works quickly and stealthily, and offers clear-cut reporting and the ability to scan for specific vulnerabilities. We would like to see the reporting process with Tenable Nessus improved. Instead of only PDF reports, one option might be to track with an Excel-based structure to better track vulnerabilities and remediation efforts and build reports from there. An option to use the same license for the cloud and on-premises at the same time would be very useful. Conclusion We felt that Tenable Nessus provided better reporting of vulnerabilities per device in a clearer, easier to understand manner. It is a very easy solution to use and makes accountability for tracing and reporting vulnerabilities easy. The flexible scanning options offered by Tenable Nessus are what we found most advantageous.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
42%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
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...
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 do you like most about Rapid7 InsightVM?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 InsightVM?
Rapid7 InsightVM is expensive, possibly one of the highest in pricing among similar products.
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable Nessus?
Tenable Nessus's pricing is adequate if it is fully utilized. The cost is justified by the value it brings in terms o...
 

Also Known As

No data available
InsightVM, NeXpose
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ACS, Acosta, AllianceData, amazon.com, biogen idec, CBRE, CATERPILLAR, Deloitte, COACH, GameStop, IBM
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 InsightVM vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.