Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Tenable Nessus vs XM Cyber comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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
18th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
XM Cyber
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
32nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Controls Monitoring (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (22nd), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 5.2%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XM Cyber is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tenable Nessus5.2%
Zafran Security1.1%
XM Cyber1.0%
Other92.7%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Reviewer6233 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal
While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even greater value. One key area for enhancement is the searching capabilities within its vulnerabilities module. By incorporating the ability to create Boolean searches, users would gain the ability to apply more complex filters and customize their search criteria. This would greatly enhance the precision and efficiency with which security teams can identify and prioritize vulnerabilities. Having such tailored search capabilities would save time and resources by narrowing down vast lists of vulnerabilities to those that meet specific parameters relevant to our unique risk environment. Additionally, integrating more robust reporting and visualization tools would be advantageous. Enhanced dashboards that offer customizable visual representations of risk configurations and threat landscapes would facilitate better communication with stakeholders, making it easier to explain vulnerabilities and the rationale behind certain security measures. This would also aid in demonstrating the improvements and value derived from existing security investments to leadership and non-technical team members.
MohammedJaffir - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at Cipheroot
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.
Stephen Owen - PeerSpot reviewer
Group CISO at a insurance company with 51-200 employees
Has significantly improved risk visibility and optimized remediation efforts across dynamic environments
We tightly integrate with APIs, consuming feeds and open source data. We have integrated with XM Cyber, and we are elevating ourselves with AI and MCP tools as we view this as a forerunner to reducing the workload for our agents and IT staff. We're pushing all our security partners to provide AI and MCP tools. Our vision is for them to offer a chat interface where a junior IT or an experienced infrastructure engineer can ask for what needs to be patched next without using an interface. Their current interface is very usable and professional, ranking in the top tier of applications. Their reporting is good, offering custom reports, and their API integration is a new capability that serves us well. We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions. However, everything has been very good. We push the boundaries with digital twins; I understand XM Cyber uses a similar concept of graph databases to map environments. I would like access to that and querying languages, enabling more informed business decisions. XM Cyber sees much of our estate, which is beneficial for making informed decisions, and we can harness those insights and data for business analytics. For instance, it could help us gain insights into change management—if a particular server impacts another and that server is supported by yet another server, we could glean significant insights for change management meetings.

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."
"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."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"With Zafran Security, it integrates with your security controls, allowing you to take that risk score and reduce it based on the controls in place or increase the risk based on different factors, such as if the issue is internet reachable or if there's an exploit in the wild."
"The most valuable feature is the installation of Tenable which is incredibly easy."
"Vulnerability assessment is the most valuable feature in Tenable Nessus, as it provides brief details regarding the vulnerability issues we have in our network."
"I have found the vulnerability assessment and the reports to be useful."
"The best features of Tenable Nessus include its compatibility with other applications such as SIEM and other apps, allowing Tenable Nessus to work smoothly with them."
"We looked at Tenable, Qualys and Rapid7. We found Tenable was the best of all three."
"It also has an executive report where you don't have to provide the client all the detail for them to sift though. But if they wish to dig through the detail they can."
"The automatic scanner and scheduler are pretty cool."
"Among the most valuable features are scanning for vulnerabilities and the reporting. The reporting templates are okay. I like that I can see all the hosts with different vulnerabilities."
"XM Cyber made it clear that browser vulnerabilities were the top priority because the platform was able to examine how vulnerabilities within our estate could be exploited and what the path would be from some bad actor in order to exploit those vulnerabilities."
"What I personally like very much, from my experience, is that it is very reliable."
"Since implementing XM Cyber, we have improved the way we are doing patching, focusing on the choke points in our patching cycle, and it improves the way we assess the risk."
"Six weeks into using XM Cyber, we saw a compelling return on investment—primarily in risk reduction, with a specific issue our other security tooling did not pick up but XM Cyber did, reducing IT remediation time and saving over 60,000 US dollars per year while significantly lowering our loss exposure amount."
"The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation."
"XM Cyber permits us to identify if a zero-day vulnerability can affect our infrastructure; it helps me understand the company's total risk that we have in our infrastructure and workstation vulnerability, and it permits us to identify the real impact when we have a vulnerability."
"XM Cyber permits us to identify if a zero-day vulnerability can affect our infrastructure; it helps me understand the company's total risk that we have in our infrastructure and workstation vulnerability, and it permits us to identify the real impact when we have a vulnerability."
 

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 dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."
"They should try to create an all-in-one solution."
"Tenable Nessus could improve the reporting by adding some dashboards. The reports are a hassle at this time. Tenable.io has more detailed reports. Having a better dashboard that can show where the vulnerabilities are and be categorized would be helpful. We then could present them to upper management for a deep overview of our network posture which they do not see."
"The price could be reduced."
"Tenable Nessus is not feasible for a large company."
"Model OS costs (and its segregation schema for individual modules)."
"You can scale Nessus to the extent that you can afford it. You need to have a license for every device you scan. As long as you can afford the increased costs, you won't have a problem scaling it."
"One area that has room for improvement is the reporting. I'm preparing reports for Windows and Linux machines, etc. Currently, I'm collecting three or four reports and turning them into one report. I don't know if it is possible to combine all of them in one report, but that would be helpful."
"The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly."
"We have not saved any time or effort, but we can prove that the effort involved around vulnerability management has been better spent to greater effect, and we've been able to demonstrate that vulnerabilities that do represent a high risk have been remediated more rapidly and more effectively."
"We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions."
"There are many interesting things about XM Cyber, but the part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IBM i specific equipment."
"They could improve support because when we need to create a super case and escalate to resolve with technical support, they resolve our ticket in approximately two weeks."
"XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas."
"They could improve support because when we need to create a super case and escalate to resolve with technical support, they resolve our ticket in approximately two weeks."
"We'd like to see a cheaper price."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"While Tenable Nessus is a good enterprise solution, the high price would likely make it prohibitive to smaller organizations."
"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."
"This solution is affordable."
"The product pricing is dynamic and varies based on the specific needs of each project and customer."
"There is an annual license required to use this solution."
"We paid about six thousand dollars per license."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"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."
"We have to pay standard licensing fees."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Vulnerability Management solutions are best for your needs.
880,685 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...
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 XM Cyber?
The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for XM Cyber?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that we have a large, complicated estate, and in the licens...
What needs improvement with XM Cyber?
There are many interesting things about XM Cyber, but the part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IB...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Hamburg Port Authority, Plymouth Rock Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Tenable Nessus vs. XM Cyber and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,685 professionals have used our research since 2012.