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Skybox Security Suite vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 25, 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
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
27th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (6th)
Skybox Security Suite
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
41st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Firewall Security Management (7th)
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
81
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.
NenadMijatovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient in vulnerability management, stable and easy to use
Vulnerability management is the most valuable feature because it lets you focus on the most critical vulnerabilities. That's the important thing. Here in Serbia, there are not so many companies that have too many firewalls inside one company. So, they usually don't buy this model for Firewall Assurance unless there is some compliance. So you can prove that your firewalls are compliant. So, that model is not so important here in Serbia. It's for bigger companies. So, they usually buy network assurance to build the model of the network and vulnerability management to focus on the most important vulnerabilities. Moreover, Skybox can collect data for many vendors. From the endpoint protection vendors to the network equipment vendors to other security vendors. So, it supports more than one hundred vendors to collect data from them.
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."
"It's very supportive and very user-friendly."
"The solution's simplicity of use is its most valuable feature."
"I think that compliance checks and policy compliance are the product's good features."
"The features that I have found most valuable with Skybox Security Suite, and this is because I work on the security side, are the firewall assurance, the change manager and the vulnerability control. These three features are the most impressive from Skybox Security."
"It's given us more visibility in terms of what are the kinds of configurations that are on these devices, and how many of these are stale rules. So it's helped greatly in terms of cleaning up of rules, for sure. And it has definitely given us a more secure way of backing up the configuration on these devices."
"Change Manager is most important because of the impact on each other of a network change or a firewall change. We want to understand this and to know, beforehand, what the impact of a change will be. We are a large network so that is a very important tool."
"The most valuable feature is the compliance, whether it's access compliance or the configuration compliance, to make sure that all of our devices are configured as they're supposed to be, to limit access as much possible, to follow least-access guidelines."
"I am impressed with the tool's change management, firewall and network assurance."
"The plug-in text information is quite useful."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"Overall Zoom is a good solution."
"The most valuable feature is how it scanned and detected through its database to let us know exactly what fixes we needed to put in place for the vulnerabilities. It detects and it also gives you the way to fix it."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is website scanning."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is real-time monitoring."
"Once you get past the initial implementation, the solution is very stable."
 

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 tool does not offer options for customization."
"The primary room for improvement would be to enable a web interface, which is not something which is there in the product. This is supposed to have come a year, a year and a half ago, but still has failed to come out. It still needs a client application to be installed on a workstation to be able to access that server and then run these reports. So I cannot extend that access to anybody. It has to be one administrator all the time. So unlike a web interface, where you can give multiple users simultaneous access and generate the various reports, that isn't a possibility at the moment."
"There are multiple dashboards but no custom dashboard. It would be good to include a custom dashboard so that we can actually choose which field and what kinds of things we want to look at."
"The only place where Skybox has room for improvement, and they're working on releasing this, it's just a slow-go, is the UI. The user interface has historically been via a locally installed thick client. They are moving to a web-based console and it's slowly coming out."
"There is room for improvement in pricing. It would be better, especially if a customer bought all four modules."
"The support could be improved."
"The price could be cheaper."
"The Network Assurance, which helps to create the network model, is not so rich."
"I think the reporting templates could be improved with Tenable Nessus."
"The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly."
"Vulnerability recommendations are outdated and not in line with industry standards."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say its reporting portion."
"They should improve the I/O reporting and the customized spreadsheet export feature."
"We would like to have the option of using the solution for the cloud as well as on-premises with the same license at the same time. That would be very helpful."
"They need more flexible pricing."
"Some things in the user interface could be better. The user interface could allow more adjustments to plugins. The price could also be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The software is expensive. I rate its pricing an eight out of ten."
"Pricing is on the higher side. In terms of licensing, you should buy the complete suite rather than buying only the Change Manager. I think Change Manager with Vulnerability Control is something that would be interesting to look at."
"Fully understand the total cost of ownership. They have gone to a new model where you have to replace the hardware every X amount of years at a very substantial cost and fully understand your intended number of nodes. To operate a firewall, you have to pay two licenses, a firewall node and a network node. If you are a reasonable-sized organization, this gets expensive very quickly."
"The licensing fee is paid yearly and is approximately $100,000."
"I think for the cost, what we got definitely is worth it. The only caution I would give is that whenever you license for Firewall Assurance at the same time, for some weird reason, you have to get one Network Assurance license, just to manage one firewall. That's a little bit of overkill. But otherwise, in general, the pricing is fairly okay."
"The pricing has increased exorbitantly in the last few years, so now it is questionable. Now, it makes me want to review other products."
"The product's pricing is excellent value. In terms of licensing, make sure you understand your network components, all your hops through your network, thoroughly, before you decide on the total cost. If you want to do point-to-point flow analysis and such, you need to have the configuration of all the devices in between point A and point B. A lot of people don't realize all their network components until they start using this product."
"The price is not expensive."
"Nessus is affordable, but its licensing model could be improved with more flexibility for adding assets."
"The price of Tenable Nessus could improve, it is expensive."
"The pricing is much more manageable versus other products."
"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."
"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."
"The is a free version of Tenable Nessus available."
"The price is okay. I would give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"The price is high for the solution. There are free tools with similar functionality available. The solution cost approximately $3,500."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
6%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Educational Organization
41%
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 do you like most about Skybox Security Suite?
Overall, the tool has helped us reduce risks. If any step is missing, it's easier for my team or engineers to identif...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skybox Security Suite?
Skybox Security Suite has indeed helped us reduce costs. The prices of AlgoSec and Skybox Security Suite are approxim...
What needs improvement with Skybox Security Suite?
There is room for improvement in the product's user interface. It could be more user-friendly.
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
ADP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BT, USAID, Delta Dental, EDF Energy, EMC, HSBC, Johnson & Johnson
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Skybox Security Suite vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.