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

Amazon Inspector vs Tenable Nessus 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
27th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
Amazon Inspector
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
IT Vendor Risk Management (5th)
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.6%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Inspector is 3.0%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 9.8%, down from 13.2% 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.
John D'Arcy - PeerSpot reviewer
Automated vulnerability assessments continuously enhance security
The most valuable features probably are the ability to do automated vulnerability assessments, which it does with Amazon Inspector version two. It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities. This allows me to pinpoint potential security vulnerabilities and provide actionable recommendations relatively quickly. Larger enterprises usually use Inspector to gather all the vulnerabilities, the CVEs, across all accounts in an AWS organization. The enterprises I work for typically have many accounts in their organization, such as thousands of accounts where I am at the moment. It is a way to gather the vulnerabilities that are present on EC2 instances, container images, and Lambda functions.
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 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."
"The vulnerability discovery is valuable, and they also rank those vulnerabilities for you. So, you could rapidly attack some of the higher, severe vulnerabilities as they pop up, if they do pop up."
"The findings dashboards are neat and easy to understand, offering clear demarcations for different types of findings and detailed insights into specific vulnerabilities and their associated instances. It is not a place where everything is dumped together. It offers an easy-to-understand layout."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon Inspector is the categorization of findings, which filters vulnerabilities by instance, container image, container repository, and Lambda function."
"The automated vulnerability detection aspect is most valuable."
"It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities."
"I recommend Amazon Inspector because it allows the automation of processes and requires less manual monitoring."
"The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset because it allows us to centralize data from various AWS services. We can integrate third-party tools as well. It is just a single-click option."
"The scalability of the solution itself is unparalleled."
"The results are not that bad, but the key selling point is that it is an affordable tool set."
"Tenable Nessus has provided increased visibility across the organization's servers."
"The most valuable features of Tenable Nessus are the scanning option. Advanced scanning is highly useful. The offline config audits and application assessments are useful."
"It does exactly what you expect it to do, and its pricing is great. We couldn't really ask for a better deal."
"It gives you an unlimited IP scan."
"It provides multiple recommendations towards the remedy of vulnerabilities."
"Ease of reviewing scores, identifying vulnerabilities, and getting information on them."
"Nessus is effortless to integrate."
 

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."
"It has automated vulnerability assessment, yet I seek more flexibility in defining custom vulnerability checks tailored to my needs, which is more difficult."
"There isn't too much to improve right now. Scanning on demand or as a part of the pipeline versus a post pipeline solution would be good, but it is not a deal breaker by any means."
"One area for improvement in Amazon Inspector is the automation aspect."
"One major area for improvement is remediation. My team works on remediating findings over time, likely using available patches. However, easier integration with Amazon's patching services would be very helpful."
"The other point is that the reporting features of Inspector need improvement. For example, I am in an organization with millions of CVEs, and getting an overview of all this is challenging."
"There is room for improvement in the scanning capabilities. I'd like to see broader coverage in terms of the vulnerabilities detected."
"It has a limited scope. So, AWS Inspector primarily focuses on the security of the EC2 instance. So, if your architecture includes other AWS services, then you may need to use additional tools for your comprehensive security assessment. So that is one con. Another is, like, we have a dependency on agents."
"There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for other services, resulting in additional charges."
"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 and scalability of the solution could improve."
"We feel the solution's technical support to be very bad."
"Pricing is one of the most important features, and it is something that they can improve on."
"It wasn't very clear how the scripts are running the scans. There's information about the script but it's not straightforward. The script information for each of the plugins should be available, but it doesn't give us straightforward direct information about how it was executed. That needs to be more clear."
"The price could be reduced."
"The reports are okay, but the interface is a bit difficult to navigate in some cases."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It's priced according to market standards for its services."
"It is scaled as you go. There are probably a certain number of scans per month, and there are tiers. If you're under a certain tier, it is free. The second level is pennies, and then all the way up to like a million. So, it has a tiered pricing program. They're pretty good with your initial scanning, and there is room to scale based on being affordable, but it is fairly cheap. There are no additional costs. They pretty much think about it as a pay-per-scan type model."
"The pricing is very transparent and clear."
"The lowest cost would be around $10 for a few small accounts, however, for thousands of accounts, it could be around $5000 to $6000 dollars per month."
"I think the price is fairly affordable. It provides a license that is fair."
"The pricing is much more manageable versus other products."
"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."
"Nessus Manager is not an expensive product. It has its limitations, but the pricing reflects that. We have a yearly subscription."
"We paid about six thousand dollars per license."
"In general, it is extremely expensive."
"The product pricing is dynamic and varies based on the specific needs of each project and customer."
"The price is okay. I would give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Vulnerability Management solutions are best for your needs.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
35%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
 

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?
Zafran is a new startup. Features are continuously being added or improved. 1) Continued integrations with existing (...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
We connect this to our vulnerability scanner as input, our security tools to better determine risk, and our change ma...
What do you like most about Amazon Inspector?
The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Inspector?
I manage pricing and purchase reserved instances, yet face challenges due to dependencies and lack of options for res...
What needs improvement with Amazon Inspector?
There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for ot...
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
betterment, caplinked, flatiron, university of nutri dame
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Inspector vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.