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Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco Vulnerability Managem...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (11th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (22nd)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) is designed for Risk-Based Vulnerability Management and holds a mindshare of 1.9%, down 2.2% compared to last year.
Tenable Nessus, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 3.6% mindshare, down 7.9% since last year.
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM)1.9%
Qualys Exposure Management9.7%
Tenable Security Center6.6%
Other81.8%
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Nessus3.6%
Wiz4.8%
Qualys Exposure Management4.0%
Other87.6%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

AshishPaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Self-employed at Self-employed
Offers contextual prioritization and risk-based remediation of vulnerability
An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite. There are a lot of GRC suites available, like Archer, MetricStream, Rsam, Protiviti, for example. So how would a solution like this work if my company has already invested thousands or maybe millions in a GRC solution? Do I still need it and how does it fit into an existing SAP environment? There could be interoperability, having more data sources, integrating Splunk, Qualys, FireEye, Rapid7, Carbon Black. I'm sure all that can be done to an extent, with a little more insight and a little more accuracy on the industry numbers and trends. I'd like the solution to offer any sort of assistance in any way with the remediation part, not just identification of vulnerability risk, and that is second.
MohammedJaffir - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at Cipheroot Cybersecurity Solutions
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature."
"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature; that is what it is used for and then data from different sources can be fed into it, and they have good dashboards, risk meters, and virtualization."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"Out of the box, the product works well for us, so it's not a tool that we need to customize very much."
"The plug-in text information is quite useful."
"The most valuable feature is the installation of Tenable which is incredibly easy."
"My advice for anybody who is considering Tenable Nessus is that it is easy to install, easy and straightforward to use, and not expensive."
"The ease of use is the primary valuable feature, and this specific version is very straightforward with the ability to modify and configure it based on different policies while offering a large number of plugins that keep it up to date with new vulnerabilities."
"What I like about it is the fact that it can figure out what changes we need to make on our systems to ensure that they're hardened properly."
"I would definitely recommend this solution; it's the best that I've used so far."
 

Cons

"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
"Tenable Nessus could include a broader range of IT assets."
"The reporting is a bit cumbersome."
"The professional version is not very scalable. It's not really scalable considering the number of assets and clients that I have."
"We'd like to see more integration potential within the solution."
"We find that some devices aren't pinged and the scans aren't done properly."
"The price could be more reasonable. I used the free Nessus version in my lab with which you can only scan 16 IP addresses."
"Sometimes, the categorization for clients was tricky at first, however, they eventually got used to it."
"We have had some false positives in the past, which we hope can improve in the future."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is based on the number of endpoints, so it's more subscription-based."
"I think the price is fairly affordable. It provides a license that is fair."
"The solution has free options."
"The solution has a single price for unlimited assets."
"There is an annual license required to use this solution."
"The price is reasonable."
"The product is free."
"We have a subscription, the licensing fees are paid yearly, and I am using the latest version."
"In general, it is extremely expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Retailer
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

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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. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid...
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 the program is such that if a company should desire to handle the installation t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable Nessus?
Based on my experience, the pricing for Tenable Nessus is somewhat higher, but customers still want to pay for it, so it remains acceptable. The annual price increase of six to seven percent could ...
 

Also Known As

Kenna.VM, Kenna Security, Kenna, Kenna Security Platform
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TransUnion
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys, Wiz, Horizon3.ai and others in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.