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Tenable Nessus vs Tenable Security Center 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
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
27th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (6th)
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
Tenable Security Center
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (11th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.4%. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 10.2%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Security Center is 5.7%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
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The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly.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.
OndrejKOVAC - PeerSpot reviewer
Empower clients with risk-based vulnerability management through continuous workflow and valuable insights
Tenable Security Center could improve by implementing more dynamic data displays and translating reports into European languages. This is especially relevant in Central Eastern Europe, where clients often require reports in local languages. Additionally, the licensing model could be more flexible for managed security providers, similar to a pay-as-you-go model.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"I have experience with it on my attack stations, and it's pretty good to optimize. Personally, I think Nessus is quite a good product."
"It allows me to prioritize efforts and utilize effective technical resources."
"The support has been really cooperative."
"Tenable Nessus has a good performance, is very user-friendly, and is easy to use."
"The scanning and reporting features are the most valuable aspects of Tenable Nessus."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the self-updating engine."
"Easy to set up vulnerability scanner with good stability and a responsive technical support team."
"Tenable integrates well with other solutions such as SIEM and batch management."
"The most valuable features in Tenable SC are scanning and analysis."
"The most important features are the dashboard and reporting. The dashboard provides statistics with graphs and bar charts for our management."
"Tenable's most valuable features are the credential scan, vulnerability reports, and vulnerability ratings (VPR)."
"Tenable SC's most valuable features are the low number of false positives and the strong capability of providing prioritization for the vulnerabilities detected."
"I like Tenable.sc's analytics and reporting. You can also configure your on-prem network monitors to talk to your Tenable.sc control panel."
"Compared to other products, the most valuable features of the solution are its ease of use and ability to provide visibility over scan results while providing many templates to users, making it a helpful tool."
"The product is our second solution, and we are happy that it meets our requirements."
"One of the most valuable features is their distributed scan model for allotting engines to work together as a pool and handle multiple scans at once, across multiple environments. Automatic scanning distribution is a distinguishing feature of their toolset."
 

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."
"EQA's and dashboards should be addressed in the next release."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with different vendors' IPS solutions. The ACLs and IPS policies signatures should be enabled based on the results of Tenable Nessus automatically, we currently have to do it manually which is very time-consuming. It has done a good job integrating with Fortinet but we would like it to be better integrated with other solutions that we have."
"Pricing is one of the most important features, and it is something that they can improve on."
"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."
"Some things in the user interface could be better. The user interface could allow more adjustments to plugins. The price could also be better."
"The report for counters is too simple and would be improved by a dashboard."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in finishing the transition to the cloud. We'd like to see them keep on improving the Tenable.io product, so that we can migrate to it entirely, instead of having to keep the Tenable.sc on-prem product."
"The web application scanning area can be improved."
"Support could be faster."
"Tenable's reporting engine needs improvement. It needs to be more efficient and add more features."
"Tenable SC can improve by adding more integrations with HCI-type tools and more accurate vulnerability detection."
"We would like to see the inclusion of external IPs and simplified reporting that's easier to deal with"
"I think the vendor training provided for Tenable.sc could be a lower price. It's quite expensive for the training."
"There's a lot of information being streamed out of the reports. What would be nice, and maybe we just haven't found it, would be more of an executive-type view. We still expect it to collect all this information, but we would like a feature that would allow us to show it to an executive or a director or someone like that and give them some type of high-level overview but not get into the nitty-gritty."
"The dashboard templates are limited."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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 solution has free options."
"While Tenable Nessus is a good enterprise solution, the high price would likely make it prohibitive to smaller organizations."
"The pricing is much more manageable versus other products."
"We paid about six thousand dollars per license."
"Its price is high for Libya. The companies here in Libya don't have the awareness of and a good budget for cybersecurity services. If you want them to go for a product, you need to provide something different. This differentiation is related to the price. They should give about 40% to 45% discount per person on the current cost."
"Cost-wise, it's an affordable tool."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is too expensive for each service center."
"I rate the solution's price as seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. The tool is quite expensive."
"My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs. The pricing of the solution falls in the mid-range level, so it is not too expensive"
"The pricing depends upon the number of IPs."
"We pay around 60,000 on a yearly basis."
"This solution's price is quite high."
"For 500 users the licensing fee is roughly $100,000."
"We're a Fortune 500 company... our licensing costs [are] in the seven figures."
"The price can start at €10,000 ($13,000 USD) for between 500 and 1,000 assets, and the price can climb into the millions as more assets are added."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
University
6%
Educational Organization
39%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
 

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?
I find that the pricing for Zafran aligns well with the comprehensive features it offers. The asset and user-based li...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even ...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
Our primary use case for Zafran involves leveraging it to enhance our vulnerability risk scoring methodology. In toda...
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...
What do you like most about Tenable SC?
The tool's dashboard and reporting capabilities match our company's needs since we are able to modify the basic view ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable SC?
Tenable Security Center is quite expensive, particularly for the CEE region, causing us to lose cases due to its pric...
What needs improvement with Tenable SC?
Tenable Security Center could improve by implementing more dynamic data displays and translating reports into Europea...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific
Find out what your peers are saying about Tenable Nessus vs. Tenable Security Center and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.