Tenable Security Center vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform comparison

The compared Tenable and Zscaler solutions aren't in the same category. Tenable is ranked #3 in RBVM , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 9.9% mindshare in the category. Zscaler is ranked #1 in ZaaS , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 17.4% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Tenable users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Tenable Security Center and Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform compete in the cybersecurity category, focusing on vulnerability scanning and secure access respectively. Zscaler seems to have the upper hand in secure access with its seamless VPN-like functionalities, enhancing ease of deployment and data protection.

Features: Tenable Security Center is known for its robust vulnerability scanning, customizable scanning policies adaptive to diverse environments, and detailed reporting capabilities supporting numerous compliance standards. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform offers seamless secure access, effectively replacing traditional VPN solutions, automatically connecting users without repeated authentications, and excellent scalability to accommodate growing enterprises.

Room for Improvement: Tenable Security Center could improve its flexibility in report customization, better external data integration, and user-friendly policy creation tools. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform faces challenges with latency, scalability, and needs enhanced support for legacy systems and competitive pricing structures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tenable Security Center is primarily on-premises, requiring comprehensive internal resources for deployment and management, paired with generally good but occasionally slow customer support. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform offers a cloud-based approach, facilitating easier deployment across multiple environments, though its customer service could benefit from improved interface usability and responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Tenable Security Center, though pricey, offers good ROI by reducing manpower costs through automation and comprehensive vulnerability management. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform is similarly expensive but delivers cost savings through integrated security features, optimizing security bandwidth in large deployments despite varied pricing based on users and features.

To learn more, read our detailed Tenable Security Center vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Security Center vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

July 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Tenable Security Center	9.9%
Qualys VMDR	16.1%
Rapid7 InsightVM	14.2%
Other	59.8%

Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

ZTNA as a Service Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform	17.4%
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks	14.0%
Cato SASE Cloud Platform	12.6%
Other	56.0%

ZTNA as a Service

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

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.

Read full review

OndrejKOVAC

Solution engineer at EXPERTience

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.

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Sumit Bhanwala

architect at Tata Consultancy

Cloud-based platform simplifies device and data center management

I find it to be good. The solution is cloud-based with the latest inspection engines, which I find to be amazing. We are less dependent on data centers and device management, which reduces our efforts significantly. It improves our device management, data center management, and updating devices. We need fewer engineers for this management, and it reduces time and efforts for data center management, device upgrades, and IT support.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"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."

"It is a very good and user-friendly product."

"Their overall cost of service is pretty good."

"The tool's dashboard and reporting capabilities match our company's needs since we are able to modify the basic view to create a new dashboard, and it works out very well for our needs."

"Tenable also helps us to focus resources on the vulnerabilities that are most likely to be exploited. And since it is continuously updated, it allows us to reevaluate quickly if there are new vulnerabilities found..."

"Initial setup was pretty straightforward."

"The product is our second solution, and we are happy that it meets our requirements."

"Tenable.sc is user-friendly."

More Tenable Security Center pros

"It has been helpful in maintaining our infrastructure. The granular level control it offers allows us to set application policies per application for each user."

"The agent's versatility is notable, used for digital experience monitoring to collect valuable endpoint metrics for troubleshooting."

"The most valuable features are the File Type Control and SSL bypass policies. We"

"I like its ease of use. It has a single pane of glass for the ZIA and ZPA pieces. It is very manageable. It is also very easy to deploy for secure access, and it gives half-decent coverage for visibility in terms of what the users use and what data is being proxied through the access gateway."

"It is straightforward to set up."

"It has some good data security and WIP features, providing secure Internet access."

"The customer service and support are very good."

"The most valuable feature of Zscaler Private Access is we do not have to connect to a VPN, it is seamless. It is more convenient for us because we use one agent to cover the internet and VPN access."

More Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform pros

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"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."

"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."

"Tenable.sc's user interface could be improved."

"If I want to have a very low-managed scan policy, it's a lot of work to create something which is very basic. If I use a tool like Nmap, all I have to do is download it, install it, type in the command, and it's good to go. In Security Center, I have to go through a lot of work to create a policy that's very basic."

"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 web application is not very functional."

"At times we have had the typical bugs."

"For downloading reports, we have to go to the scan and then we have to go to the reports and download the Excel or CSV or PDF. I think these menus and clicks can be minimized."

"Tenable SC can improve by making it easier to create complicated reports and have more effectiveness in the remediation area for comparison between the scans."

"The user interface can be improved."

More Tenable Security Center cons

"We'd like to have two-factor authentication that is quite simple."

"It needs to offer SSO, single sign-on, and items of that nature."

"The only issue with Zscaler Cloud DLP is that it only gives you DLP protection from web traffic, which is flowing out, while a full-blown DLP solution such as Forcepoint or Symantec gives you DLP coverage for multiple channels. Zscaler Cloud DLP doesn't give you coverage for email, fax, and USB channels, and this is the only challenge or room for improvement in the solution. It's just an extension on top of what you're buying on the proxy, so it's just an added layer, and it doesn't cover DLP on a very broad level. I'm unsure if Zcaler is in the business of competing with a full-blown DLP solution, and if there's a plan to expand the features of Zscaler Cloud DLP beyond the web channel because you'll have to deploy a full-blown agent for it. I'm unsure if this is on the cards because the solution is just an added layer that you get with your proxy. I've asked the Zcaler team whether there's a plan to go full DLP in the future, but I didn't get a positive response. There isn't any feature I'd like added to Zscaler Cloud DLP currently, because anything you could think of that should be in cloud or SaaS solutions is already there, except for machine learning, as it's the only functionality that seems to be lacking in the solution. Machine learning is an additional policy available in other DLP solutions in the market, but my team didn't find it in Zscaler Cloud DLP."

"An area for improvement would be the ease of configuration."

"There could be a feature to view the VPN tunnel activities in terms of configuration."

"Zscaler Private Access needs to improve its collaboration with applications without compromising security."

"While Zscaler supports client-initiated connections, it does not support server-initiated connections. This is a feature that Zscaler may consider adding in the future."

"The stability could be improved."

More Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It is a bit expensive. Everything is included in the license."

"For 500 users the licensing fee is roughly $100,000."

"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"

"I use a local license to perform penetration testing and I'm pretty happy with everything when it comes to pricing and licensing."

"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, where ten is expensive. It is the most expensive tool my company is using."

"It is slightly more expensive than other solutions in the same sphere."

"Tenable.sc is more expensive than its competitors."

"Tenable is open-source."

More Tenable Security Center pricing and cost advice

"It is an auto-renewal subscription service."

"The technical support is good."

"It has been relatively reasonable for what it does. Some of the additional license costs based on the advanced next-generation firewall functions are quite high, and they should have certain features ready and available as a baseline rather than having to purchase additional licenses for it. Overall, the cost seems reasonable."

"The product is a little more expensive than other tools."

"There is definitely an ROI."

"The solution has increased prices this year."

"It's expensive currently. But when purchasing for a large number of users, there's room to negotiate. It's really up to the procurement team."

"In terms of market positioning, I would describe Zscaler Private Access as offering optimal pricing. Based on our experience, Cato Networks tends to be slightly more expensive."

More Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	41

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...

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable SC?

The price of Tenable Security Center is not so high; it's relatively a cheaper solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Tenable SC?

The reason for rating it an eight out of ten is that the initial setup could be easier; the setup is rather difficult...

See all answers

What is the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?

We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...

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What do you like most about Zscaler SASE?

The most valuable features of Zscaler Private Access are reliability, scalability, and availability.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zscaler SASE?

The solution needs to improve a lot of aspects.

See all answers

Comparisons

Wiz Code vs Zafran Security

Compared 37% of the time

Vulcan Cyber vs Zafran Security

Compared 16% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Zafran Security

Compared 9% of the time

Nucleus vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

More Zafran Security Competitors

Qualys VMDR vs Tenable Security Center

Compared 12% of the time

Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Security Center

Compared 11% of the time

Tenable Nessus vs Tenable Security Center

Compared 10% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Security Center

Compared 8% of the time

The NodeZero Platform vs Tenable Security Center

Compared 7% of the time

More Tenable Security Center Competitors

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 7% of the time

FortiSASE vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Netskope Private Access vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 4% of the time

More Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

August 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Security Center

August 2025

Download Tenable Security Center product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

August 2025

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform report

Download Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter

Zscaler SASE, Zscaler DLP, Zscaler CASB, Zscaler CSPM, Zscaler Browser Isolation, Zscaler Posture Control

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Get a risk-based view of your IT, security and compliance posture so you can quickly identify, investigate and prioritize your most critical assets and vulnerabilities.

Managed on-premises and powered by Nessus technology, the Tenable Security Center (formerly Tenable.sc) suite of products provides the industry’s most comprehensive vulnerability coverage with real-time continuous assessment of your network. It’s your complete end-to-end vulnerability management solution.

Tenable

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform acts as a VPN alternative for secure remote access, cloud protection, and zero-trust strategies. It enables secure data transmission, supports remote work, and enhances compliance through a cloud-based architecture, offering improved performance and simplified management.

Designed for organizations seeking secure application access and robust data protection, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform delivers a comprehensive solution through seamless VPN connectivity, data loss prevention, and SSL inspection. Its cloud integration ensures scalability and reliability, while its interface provides intuitive management. Companies benefit from automatic secure access, minimizing constant authentication needs, and safeguarding sensitive data. The platform allows easy deployment and integration with diverse identity providers, granting granular control for access and application segmentation. Despite powerful capabilities, enhancements are needed in speed, bandwidth, and legacy support, with users noting interface and configuration challenges.

What are the key features of Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform?

Seamless VPN Connectivity: Provides automatic secure access without repetitive authentication.
Strong Security Measures: Offers DLP and SSL inspection for data protection.
Cloud Integration: Ensures scalability and performance optimization.
Granular Access Control: Manages access with application-specific segmentation.

What benefits should companies look for in reviews when evaluating this platform?

Performance: Enhanced connectivity and reduced latency.
Data Protection: Comprehensive DLP and encryption capabilities.
Scalability: Efficient handling of growing organizational demands.
Ease of Deployment: Quick setup and integration with IDPs.

In specific industries, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange has been implemented to enhance security protocols in fields like finance and healthcare. By prioritizing data protection and compliance, it assists companies in safely managing sensitive information and meeting regulatory requirements. Organizations leverage its features to ensure secure operations across remote and cloud environments, adapting to industry-specific needs with customizable access and security controls.

Zscaler

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific

Siemens, AutoNation, GE, NOV

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Security Center vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

July 2025

Free Report: Tenable Security Center vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

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