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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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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
16th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (1st)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (16th), Microsoft Security Suite (20th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 2.8%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 7.7%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tenable Nessus7.7%
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management2.8%
Zafran Security1.1%
Other88.4%
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.
NaySan @ Suraj Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides actionable vulnerability insights and recommendations with notable efficiency
They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours. Overall, everything is good with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, but the portal refresh rate can take up to seven days in some cases and three or four days in others to reflect changes.
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

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"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."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"The main advantage of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is that it can locate and prevent most threats even when the endpoints are not connected to the corporate network, as long as the internet is available."
"The recommendations, scores, and steps to remediate actions are highly useful."
"The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides regular advisories and recommendations that help improve our security posture."
"The solution is highly scalable."
"The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"We looked at Tenable, Qualys and Rapid7. We found Tenable was the best of all three."
"It gives a holistic view of your entire environment."
"Nessus' most valuable feature is vulnerability management because it helps to discover vulnerabilities proactively and integrates with patch management solutions so you can push patches."
"The solution provides time saving and cost saving benefits."
"Out of the box, the product works well for us, so it's not a tool that we need to customize very much."
"Ease of reviewing scores, identifying vulnerabilities, and getting information on them."
"The most valuable feature is the breadth of vulnerabilities that it finds. It's able to find across a lot of different platforms and operating systems. It's also able to combine local testing with network-based testing."
"Overall Zoom is a good solution."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"There should be risk scoring added to Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management; specifically, they call it quantification of the risk."
"Sometimes the stability of the agents could be improved."
"The setup phase of the product is not that easy and needs a person to have a certain level of expertise."
"It is challenging to extract and customize reports from the system."
"Probably my only criticism would be the cost. It is expensive."
"The product is not stable; it is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU, which makes it slow."
"Regarding Microsoft's technical support, I would rate it a three out of ten; they could be more responsive and knowledgeable."
"The automated remediations can be more specific."
"There is room, overall, for improvement in the way it groups the workstations and the way it detects, when the vulnerability is scanned. Even when we would run a new scan, if it was an already existing vulnerability, it wouldn't put a new date on it."
"We use credentialed scans. They need more permissions and more changes or settings on Windows and Linux."
"Vulnerability recommendations are outdated and not in line with industry standards."
"They need more flexible pricing."
"The integration part is not good because five years ago, Tenable Nessus had more integration capability. After that, Tenable changed their policies and strategy."
"There could be an integration between Tenable Nessus and other Tenable products. It will help us manage all the solutions using one dashboard."
"The report for counters is too simple and would be improved by a dashboard."
"Sometimes, the categorization for clients was tricky at first, however, they eventually got used to it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"Nowadays, your vulnerability applications are going to be kind of pricey because lots of them, including Rapid7, are based upon a base price, but then they add in the nodes. That's where they get you. If you're a big network, obviously, you need to scan everything. Therefore, it's going to be costly. The risk and insurance money associated with having ransomware on my networks is going to cost me more money, time, and marketing than the price of the tool. That's why I'm speaking only as an information security officer to security operations. This is the tool that is there in my toolbox to say whether we vulnerable or not. At this point, I don't care about how much it costs my company to have it because if I wasn't able to report it and we got ransomware, then who cares? I'm probably going to be out of business because it happened. That's why I don't care about the price. I have it, and I could use it effectively and do my report. At the end of the day, even if we get ransomware, as long as I reported it, followed my protocol, and put in the change, irrespective of whether it was ignored or denied, I did my job."
"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."
"Nessus Manager is not an expensive product. It has its limitations, but the pricing reflects that. We have a yearly subscription."
"Tenable Nessus is affordable."
"The solution has a single price for unlimited assets."
"Its price is high for Libya. The companies here in Libya don't have the awareness of and a good budget for cybersecurity services. If you want them to go for a product, you need to provide something different. This differentiation is related to the price. They should give about 40% to 45% discount per person on the current cost."
"While Tenable Nessus is a good enterprise solution, the high price would likely make it prohibitive to smaller organizations."
"Cost-wise, it's an affordable tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I have not thought about improvements for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as of now, but this is typicall...
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
Information Not Available
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.