Orca Security vs Tenable Nessus comparison

Orca Security and Tenable are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Orca Security is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.6, while Tenable is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2. Orca Security holds a 4.5% mindshare in VM, compared to Tenable’s 8.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Orca Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Tenable users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Tenable Nessus and Orca Security compete in the cybersecurity tools category. Orca Security seems to have the upper hand due to its agentless architecture, cloud focus, and rapid support.

Features: Tenable Nessus offers extensive vulnerability scanning, predictive prioritization, and an integration ability that supports risk management across environments. Orca Security's SideScanning technology allows agentless data collection, ranking and prioritizing vulnerabilities, and providing detailed cloud-level visibility.

Room for Improvement: Tenable Nessus could improve in reporting customization, intuitive interfaces, and reducing false positives. Orca Security could expand its on-premise integration and visualization capabilities, automatic remediation features, and enhance communication on updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tenable Nessus is mostly deployed on-premises, and feedback on technical support is mixed. Orca Security is deployed in the cloud with minimal setup and is praised for ease of use and quick support response.

Pricing and ROI: Tenable Nessus is competitively priced for smaller organizations and presents a strong ROI through its management capabilities. Orca Security is generally more expensive but justifies cost with its feature suite and value in reducing the need for multiple tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus

June 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

As of July 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.8%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Orca Security is 4.5%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 8.8%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management

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.

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CHINTAN MEHTA

Cloud Security Automation Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Consolidating security tools with comprehensive cloud visibility

The documentation for Orca Security could be improved. The compliance framework also needs enhancements, especially concerning integrations with other tools like ServiceNow's vulnerability modules, which are not as mature as expected. It should also increase its capability to ingest data from other security tools like CloudSight for endpoint detection and provide real-time monitoring.

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HarshBhardiya

SOC Engineer at Just Dial Limited

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.

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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."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

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

"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."

"Orca provides X-ray vision into everything within the cloud properties, whereas normally, this would require multiple tools."

"Orca's SideScanning is the biggest feature. It's the 'wow' factor... With Orca's SideScanning, they just need permissions for your account and that makes it so simple."

"The initial setup is very easy."

"The best features of Orca Security include its ability to perform a lot of security controls without requiring any installation of agents, making it very easy to set up."

"The most valuable feature of Orca Security is the automated scanning tool, user-friendliness, and ease of use."

"Orca Security has helped reduce the time it takes to address cloud security alerts."

"The visibility Orca provides into my environment is at the highest level... When I dropped them into the environment, from the very get-go I had more insight into the risks in my environment than I had had during the entire two and a half years I had been here."

"I recommend Orca Security to others looking for a cloud security solution due to its seamless integration and side-scanning technology that does not hamper cloud asset performance."

More Orca Security pros

"Nessus is good at finding out what nodes you have in place. It will then provide you a report, by node, of what the vulnerabilities are. It does it quickly and stealthfully."

"The stability is very good."

"The vulnerability scanner is the most valuable feature."

"Tenable Nessus is an absolutely stable and fantastic product."

"It gives you an unlimited IP scan."

"Tenable Nessus has a good performance, is very user-friendly, and is easy to use."

"The initial setup of Tenable Nessus is very easy."

"Tenable Nessus is cheap and flexible."

More Tenable Nessus 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."

"Orca Security could improve its ticket creation process. Currently, it allows for creating tickets in only one bucket, which requires monitoring to redirect tickets to the appropriate team."

"The interface can be a bit cranky and sometimes takes a lot of time to load."

"I would be happy if they offered more automatic remediation options. They're working on that, but the more the better. For example, if they want you to harden a server, they would offer a hardening script that would be more aware of what's going on."

"The automatic scan only runs every 24 hours, and if an alert is remediated within an hour, it still remains until the next scheduled scan."

"Orca Security could improve its ticket creation process."

"The timeout settings could be made more customizable, as sometimes if I leave the office early, it's still running unless manually turned off."

"As with all software, the user interface can always be made simpler to use. It would be helpful for people with very little knowledge, like somebody sitting behind the SOC, to allow them to be able to drill down into things a little bit easier than it is currently."

"A notable limitation with Orca Security is its scanning feature. The automatic scan only runs every 24 hours, and if an alert is remediated within an hour, it still remains until the next scheduled scan."

More Orca Security cons

"The professional version is not very scalable."

"It would be nice for the professional module to include some of the reports available in the expert module."

"From my point of view the solution basically is not for the big enterprise."

"Consumes more system resources when it's running."

"They should try to create an all-in-one solution."

"One significant drawback we encounter is the tool's tendency to flag patched packages incorrectly. For instance, if a package is patched by Debian maintainers but not updated to a major or minor version, Nessus may still flag it as vulnerable based on its database. This discrepancy leads to false alarms and requires our developers, system admins, and DevOps teams to address them."

"The reporting feature needs to be improved."

"The pricing point has increased significantly in recent years. The product's pricing has roughly tripled within the last couple of years, making us reconsider renewing the license for the scanner."

More Tenable Nessus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"While it's competitive with Palo Alto Prisma, I think Orca's list price is very high. I would advise Orca to lower it because, at that price, I might consider alternatives like Wiz, which also offers agentless services."

"Overall, the pricing is reasonable and the discounts have been acceptable."

"The most expensive solution is Palo Alto. They claim to be very robust. The next most expensive is Wiz, followed by Orca and all the rest."

"Orca Security is cheaper compared to other solutions in the same space."

"We have a total of 25 licenses for this solution. The solution is on a pay-and-you-use model."

"Orca Security charges are based on cloud workloads. So, it's based on workloads. If we look at one feature, it might be expensive."

"The price is a bit expensive for smaller organizations."

"Its license is a bit expensive."

More Orca Security pricing and cost advice

"Cost-wise, it's an affordable tool."

"The solution has a single price for unlimited assets."

"The price is reasonable."

"The product pricing is dynamic and varies based on the specific needs of each project and customer."

"The cost is around $4,300 per year. Use is unlimited. You don't pay more if you want to use it for another IP."

"Its pricing is great and can't be improved. It is very cheap. It is less than 2,000 pounds a license, and you can't really ask for more. It has unlimited IPs and unlimited scans. There are no particular pricing constraints. The only additional cost is the inherent cost of the people to actually review the actual scans."

"I rate the product's price seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."

"The solution is worth the cost. It's a good investment."

More Tenable Nessus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

University

Educational Organization

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

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?

The current pricing of Zafran Security is fair overall. They were good to work with to accommodate our organization w...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

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

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

Zafran Security is helping reduce the amount of critical vulnerabilities in our environments that require prompt reme...

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What do you like most about Orca Security?

It's for protection. It's an agentless tool. We don't need to install anything at a customer's premises. We can just ...

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What needs improvement with Orca Security?

Orca Security can be improved as there should be some kind of central pane of glass. Similar to how cloud management ...

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What is your primary use case for Orca Security?

Our clients use Orca Security for various reasons. We implement it for the clients.

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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. Yo...

See all answers

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 ...

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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...

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Comparisons

Wiz Code vs Zafran Security

Compared 42% of the time

Vulcan Cyber vs Zafran Security

Compared 16% of the time

ServiceNow Security Operations vs Zafran Security

Compared 9% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Zafran Security

Compared 9% of the time

Nucleus vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

More Zafran Security Competitors

Wiz vs Orca Security

Compared 32% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Orca Security

Compared 8% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Orca Security

Compared 5% of the time

AWS Security Hub vs Orca Security

Compared 4% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs Orca Security

Compared 3% of the time

More Orca Security Competitors

Qualys VMDR vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 12% of the time

Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 11% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 8% of the time

Pentera vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 7% of the time

More Tenable Nessus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

June 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Orca Security

March 2025

Download Orca Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Nessus

June 2025

Download Tenable Nessus product report

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

Orca Security is the pioneer of agentless cloud security that is trusted by hundreds of enterprises globally. Orca makes cloud security possible for enterprises moving to and scaling in the cloud with its patented SideScanning™ technology and Unified Data Model. The Orca Cloud Security Platform delivers the world's most comprehensive coverage and visibility of risks across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Kubernetes.

At Orca Security, we’re on a mission to make it fast, easy, and cost effective for organizations to address critical cloud security issues so they can operate in the cloud with confidence.

Key Platform Features:

Agentless: Complete, centralized coverage of the entire cloud estate, without the need for installing and configuring agents or layering together multiple siloed tools. Full visibility of cloud misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, workload protection, malware scanning, image scanning, file integrity monitoring and more.
Asset Inventory: Get a complete inventory of all your public cloud assets, including detailed information on installed OSes, software, and applications, as well as data and network assets such as storage buckets, Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), and Security Groups.

Attack Path Analysis: Visualize attack vectors to critical assets or crown jewels. See which assets are susceptible to lateral movement, assume roles, privilege escalation, and more.

Risk Prioritization: Prioritize the 1% of risks that matter the most, based on impact scores. Secure the vulnerabilities and misconfigured targets (critical assets) and eliminate the potential risks residing on the attack paths to those targets.
Cloud Threat Detection: Monitor for malicious activity within your entire cloud estate. Be aware of detected threats, user behavior anomalies and more.

Breach Forensics: Log every change and all activity into a central repository for investigation procedures to confirm or deny entry and compromises within the cloud estate.
Cloud To Dev (Shift Left): Orca’s built-in shift left capabilities enables DevOps to focus more security attention earlier in the CI/CD pipelines. Security teams are able to trace a production risk (misconfiguration or vulnerability) directly to the original source code repository from which it came, even down to the exact line of code that is at the root of the identified risk.
Compliance: Choose from over 60 preconfigured compliance frameworks, cloud security best practices, CIS Benchmarks, or design and build your own compliance framework for fast and continuous reporting.
Security Score: The Orca Security Score is found on Orca’s Risk Dashboard and is updated daily. The overall score is calculated based on performance in the following five categories - Suspicious Activity, IAM, Data at Risk, Vulnerable Assets, and Responsiveness. Since the scores are percentage based and not raw numbers, you can objectively make comparisons to other organizations within your industry or business units of different sizes. In addition to reporting to senior management, the Orca Security Score can help with internal self-monitoring, as a way of measuring risk mitigation efforts, to know where to focus efforts, and track progress.

Orca Security Benefits

Consolidate technologies to reduce costs and complexity:

“The more I can get out of this one solution, the better. I see Orca as the tool where we get all cloud-related security data.” - Joshua Scott, Head of Security and IT | Postman

Avoid costly breaches:

"I look at proactive asset discovery, configuration management, and vulnerability management as being able to find a vulnerability before the bad guys do and being able to deal with it before something exploits it. This is what Orca does for us." - Doug Graham, CSO & CPO | Lionbridge

Increase team productivity and efficiency by focusing on high-value activities and solving the 1% of risks that matter most:

"Orca is unique in that it locates vulnerabilities with precision and delivers tangible, actionable results – without having to sift through all the noise." - Aaron Brown, Senior Cloud Security Engineer | Sisense

Quick Time-to-Value with Immediate ROI:

"Orca told us we could have some visibility within 5 or 10 minutes, and I thought, ‘There’s no way.’ Well, I was wrong. They really did it." - Thomas Hill, CISO | Live Oak Bank

Reduce MTTR and remove operational friction:

“We can’t ask developers things like ‘Did you think about security? When you start a new VM on AWS, can you please let me know so I’m able to scan it? Can you please deploy an agent on that machine for me?’ We need a better way to work. Orca provides that better way by eliminating organizational friction.” - Erwin Geirnaert, Cloud Security Architect | NG Data

Orca Security

Tenable Nessus provides an efficient vulnerability management system with swift deployment and comprehensive scanning capabilities, making it an ideal choice for organizations seeking to enhance their security posture through effective threat detection and mitigation strategies.

Renowned for its top-tier vulnerability detection, Tenable Nessus offers a robust platform that integrates effortlessly across systems, enhancing threat management through automation, real-time monitoring, and customizable scanning options. Its broad asset coverage, including network devices and applications, coupled with ease of deployment, positions it as a go-to option for risk assessment and compliance. Organizations value its extensive reporting features and database, although they suggest enhancements in reporting formats and false positive detection. A more intuitive interface, improved cloud support, and competitive pricing models are sought after to cater to evolving enterprise needs.

What are the key features of Tenable Nessus?

Comprehensive Vulnerability Detection: Identifies security gaps across systems and platforms.
Remedy Recommendations: Provides actionable insights for vulnerability fixes.
Predictive Prioritization: Helps in focusing on critical vulnerabilities first.
Seamless Integration: Compatible with diverse platforms for cohesive threat management.
Automation Capabilities: Streamlines routine scans and reports.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Fast Setup: Quick deployment that saves time and resources.
Cost-Effective: Affordable pricing supports budget-conscious cyber strategies.
Real-Time Monitoring: Offers continuous oversight of system health.
Extensive Reports: Detailed insights enhance decision-making processes.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and tech, Tenable Nessus is implemented for scanning internal and external networks, identifying risks, and ensuring data protection compliance. Organizations conduct regular scans to detect security vulnerabilities in servers and databases, leveraging its capabilities to strengthen their security frameworks while managing cloud infrastructures and enterprise networks efficiently.

Tenable

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

BeyondTrust, Postman, Digital Turbine, Solarisbank, Lemonade, C6 Bank, Docebo, Vercel, and Vivino

Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University

Buyer's Guide

Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus

June 2025

Free Report: Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus

Find out what your peers are saying about Orca Security vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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