No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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

 

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
6.0
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (2nd)
 

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 2.4%, up 2.2% compared to last year.
Tenable Nessus, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 4.1% mindshare, down 9.5% since last year.
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM)2.4%
Qualys VMDR10.5%
Rapid7 InsightVM8.8%
Other78.3%
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Nessus4.1%
Wiz5.0%
Qualys VMDR4.2%
Other86.7%
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
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; 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 risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature."
"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."
"Tenable Nessus is one of the best vulnerability assessment tools that I know."
"Using Nessus, we are able to scan and locate any potential vulnerabilities that our clients may have and point them out to them."
"Tenable Nessus has helped us with better visibility of the current security posture of our infrastructure and helped us be proactive about remediating those findings."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is that you receive the entire report, which details the breakdown, especially in terms of critical, high, low, and mediums."
"Tenable Nessus has a good performance, is very user-friendly, and is easy to use."
"I like the fact that it was not expensive. I like that it's user-friendly."
"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."
 

Cons

"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
"The professional version is not very scalable. It's not really scalable considering the number of assets and clients that I have."
"Nessus' reporting could be more user-friendly."
"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."
"Online learning could be a bit better."
"We would like to have the option of using the solution for the cloud as well as on-premises with the same license at the same time. That would be very helpful."
"Offer a more flexible strategic and high-level dashboards based on previous comments (minus technical and more business-oriented)."
"They should improve the I/O reporting and the customized spreadsheet export feature."
"The reporting is a bit cumbersome."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is based on the number of endpoints, so it's more subscription-based."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The price is high for the solution. There are free tools with similar functionality available. The solution cost approximately $3,500."
"The product pricing is dynamic and varies based on the specific needs of each project and customer."
"Our organization is huge so our license costs $30,000."
"One problem with Tenable is its pricing policy. Optimal results can be achieved with Greenbone Solutions which has much more friendly pricing policies."
"We have a subscription, the licensing fees are paid yearly, and I am using the latest version."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is much more competitive versus other solutions on the market."
"I think the price is fairly affordable. It provides a license that is fair."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Risk-Based Vulnerability Management solutions are best for your needs.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Retailer
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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, Horizon3.ai, Tenable and others in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.