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Salt Security vs Tenable Nessus comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

Salt Security
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
API Security (4th), AI Security (19th)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Salt Security is designed for API Security and holds a mindshare of 9.1%, down 10.1% compared to last year.
Tenable Nessus, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 3.6% mindshare, down 7.8% since last year.
API Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salt Security9.1%
Imperva Application Security Platform9.1%
Checkmarx One6.9%
Other74.9%
API Security
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Nessus3.6%
Qualys Exposure Management3.9%
Wiz3.9%
Other88.6%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Tbaker Baker - PeerSpot reviewer
Risk Advisory Senior Manager at a marketing services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Behavioral AI has protected critical applications and now blocks complex external attacks
I think Salt Security could improve their implementations. The one that I saw was very complex and took quite a bit of time, and if the environment is unique at all, it takes quite a bit of time to figure out how to properly ensure that it will be implemented. A lot of times there is a steep learning curve for someone that hasn't been in it to figure out the APIs and really dig deep into it, but once you get used to it, it is easy. However, that ramp-up period could be tough. I think Salt Security could use a more enterprise focus. Some of the smaller companies that I have referred them to think it is a little bit too complex for them, so if they could come up with a different version or something a little bit easier to simplify their platform, they may be able to find more customers that way.
MohammedJaffir - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at Cipheroot Cybersecurity Solutions
Has enabled me to reduce false positives and perform deep credential auditing with seamless integrations
I mostly use the configuration audit feature for the audit configuration as a scan policy, and I will use it for credential audit, which helps me scan credentials access such as local administrator or root access, performing a deeper and more accurate check of local configuration settings and file systems, making it a highly recommended feature. Regarding integration capabilities, we can integrate Tenable Nessus with SIM tools such as Splunk, IBM QRadar, and Azure Sentinel, as well as with ticketing systems such as ServiceNow, Jira, and Slack. There is no complexity as it is very easy to integrate everything. In terms of the reporting feature, while vulnerability scanning can throw some false positives, Tenable Nessus has very few, achieving a reduction of 75% to 80% false positives with manual analysis needed. We can generate standard Nessus reports that typically include host summaries and vulnerabilities by host and plugin, alongside solutions and remediation recommendations. The main benefits I get from Tenable Nessus are complete asset inventory and comprehensive attack surface management, allowing us to prioritize vulnerabilities based on risk, focusing on true risk and threat path analysis.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Salt Security gives you visibility of all your APIs, identifies API security issues, and immediately alerts you of attacks."
"Salt Security gave me much better visibility into API risk, helping me identify exposed endpoints, misconfigured APIs, and sensitive data flowing through APIs that required additional controls, and it has become an important part of my API security program."
"It's really great. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. I haven't encountered any instability issues."
"Salt Security has positively impacted my organization and my client's organization by being able to stop cyberattacks and ensure that they have proper security over all their applications, giving them a sense of peace of mind that they have security over something that could ultimately take down the whole company if not mitigated properly."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is that you receive the entire report, which details the breakdown, especially in terms of critical, high, low, and mediums."
"The solution is the most dynamic one I have seen thus far."
"Nessus is good at finding out what nodes you have in place. It will then provide you a report, by node, of what the vulnerabilities are. It does it quickly and stealthfully."
"I like the fact that it was not expensive. I like that it's user-friendly."
"My advice for anybody who is considering Tenable Nessus is that it is easy to install, easy and straightforward to use, and not expensive."
"Nessus is a very stable product, and it has been a pioneer and has been around for a long time."
"We looked at Tenable, Qualys and Rapid7. We found Tenable was the best of all three."
"My advice to people who are looking into implementing this product would be to just go ahead and do it."
 

Cons

"The setup cost was acceptable, but adding additional APIs was actually quite expensive."
"The integration part could be a bit extended."
"Regarding scalability, for users in smaller environments, it is not exactly the best."
"To be honest, I haven't used it much to tell you that these are the things that should be improved. But I believe the UI should be enhanced somewhat. For example, there are two ways to find a report, and people are frequently confused as to which is the correct method for locating a full report. Sometimes they go in the opposite direction, so this is an area that may be improved."
"Consumes more system resources when it's running."
"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."
"One significant drawback we encounter is the tool's tendency to flag patched packages incorrectly. For instance, if a package is patched by Debian maintainers but not updated to a major or minor version, Nessus may still flag it as vulnerable based on its database. This discrepancy leads to false alarms and requires our developers, system admins, and DevOps teams to address them."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say that the reporting feature needs to be improved."
"Some things in the user interface could be better. The user interface could allow more adjustments to plugins. The price could also be better."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say its reporting portion."
"It would be nice for the professional module to include some of the reports available in the expert module."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"This solution is affordable."
"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 price of Tenable Nessus is much more competitive versus other solutions on the market."
"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."
"The product is free."
"Our organization is huge so our license costs $30,000."
"While Tenable Nessus is a good enterprise solution, the high price would likely make it prohibitive to smaller organizations."
"I rate the product's price seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salt Security?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that I think it was affordable. For smaller companies, it might be a barrier to entry, but for the large enterprise that I was working with,...
What needs improvement with Salt Security?
I think Salt Security could improve their implementations. The one that I saw was very complex and took quite a bit of time, and if the environment is unique at all, it takes quite a bit of time to...
What is your primary use case for Salt Security?
My main use case for Salt Security is that one of my clients uses it as a security vendor for their security across all of their overlying applications. I can give you a specific example of how my ...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable Nessus?
Based on my experience, the pricing for Tenable Nessus is somewhat higher, but customers still want to pay for it, so it remains acceptable. The annual price increase of six to seven percent could ...
 

Also Known As

Salt Security API Protection Platform
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Appsflyer, Armis, City National Bank, Coralogix, Finastra, Gett, Honeybook, Payoneer
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Orca Security, Akamai and others in API Security. Updated: August 2026.
911,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.