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Pentera vs Tenable Nessus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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

Pentera
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Penetration Testing Services (2nd), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (2nd)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Pentera and Tenable Nessus aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Pentera is designed for Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) and holds a mindshare of 29.3%, up 28.3% compared to last year.
Tenable Nessus, on the other hand, focuses on Vulnerability Management, holds 8.8% mindshare, down 13.0% since last year.
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Jon Medvenics - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful in vulnerability management and can automate pen tests
One of the big issues we have is that the tool has an additional license for compromised credentials. Suppose compromised credentials for any of your domains appear in leaks, dumps, or are being sold. In that case, they try to aggregate that data and highlight that, for example, ten users appeared in recent dumps as compromised credentials. However, they don't provide much information about where those compromises came from or their source information, probably to protect their sources. Also, if you have credentials and want to check if they're still valid or can still be used, and you confirm they can't be used (maybe they're from a leak or a twenty-year-old database), there's no way for you to flag that these credentials aren't a problem anymore. The solution has a sort of flat report. It's annoying to go through lots of legwork only to see the same names or credentials still there, and you can't do anything about it in their portal. We've given them feedback, but I think it's probably on their long list of feature requests to address. For me, that would be a greater user configuration of the tests performed on a granular level. As I mentioned with Cymulate, they show you every line of code they will run and what tool is being used, step by step. Pentera is more closed in that regard. If Pentera released a feature that allows you to alter the attack path or change the command, that would be incredibly useful. Pentera might use one or a few different methods to do something, but if none of those work, it will just say everything is fine and secure. If Pentera could adapt or change based on what it finds in the environment, that would be very valuable. As a customer, we understand our environments better than an automated tool, so providing context to help the tool get better results would be valuable.
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

"What I like the most about Pentera is its solution-oriented approach."
"The platform's most valuable features are credential management and vulnerability management."
"The tool showed us that our ransomware protection wasn’t working on some machines."
"Pentera has many authentic features."
"Maybe there are some remediation steps on the website, we can mask sensitive information on the website better."
"The vulnerability scanner, exploit achievements, and remediation actions are all great."
"The most valuable feature of Pentera is that you can do continuous vulnerability assessment, which is automated."
"The product is easy to use."
"The most valuable features are that it's fast, it's easy to use and it provides good reports."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is website scanning."
"The scanning and reporting features are the most valuable aspects of Tenable Nessus."
"Quick assessments, compliance scores, and results are provided without having to do agents."
"Tenable Nessus is one of the best vulnerability assessment tools, that I know."
"Makes ransomware checking and OS auditing and implementation relatively easy."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the support it provides for any new vulnerabilities quickly."
 

Cons

"The price could be improved."
"One of the big issues we have is that the tool has an additional license for compromised credentials. Suppose compromised credentials for any of your domains appear in leaks, dumps, or are being sold. In that case, they try to aggregate that data and highlight that, for example, ten users appeared in recent dumps as compromised credentials. However, they don't provide much information about where those compromises came from or their source information, probably to protect their sources."
"The licensing and IP management need improvement."
"One area for product improvement could be the inclusion of a dashboard to cover multiple branches and subsidiaries, allowing for centralized monitoring."
"The vulnerability scanner, exploit achievements, and remediation actions are all great."
"There is room for improvement in virtualization compatibility."
"Pentera's general dashboards could be improved and made more specific in terms of vulnerabilities that I'm discovering."
"Maybe scalability. I know that the Pentera right now is high level in order to scan big deals over 500 IPs and not less, and not less. That can be more granular. This will be useful."
"Tenable Nessus application device assessment is one of the top tools. However, in the application security assessment, there are other tools that provide better, and more accurate findings."
"The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly."
"We have had some false positives in the past, which we hope can improve in the future."
"Tenable Nessus could improve reporting and information sharing. It would be helpful if we could share the reports and have a little bit better flexibility in the reporting of the data."
"The solution should be able to support more devices."
"From my point of view the solution basically is not for the big enterprise."
"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."
"Model OS costs (and its segregation schema for individual modules)."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's cost is reasonable. I rate the pricing a three out of ten."
"It's not that expensive, but it could be more cost-effective."
"We have to pay a yearly licensing cost for Pentera."
"The tool is relatively cheap."
"We paid about six thousand dollars per license."
"The pricing is much more manageable versus other products."
"I would like to see better discounts."
"Nessus Manager is not an expensive product. It has its limitations, but the pricing reflects that. We have a yearly subscription."
"The solution is worth the cost. It's a good investment."
"The price is high for the solution. There are free tools with similar functionality available. The solution cost approximately $3,500."
"The price is reasonable."
"We pay approximately $2,500 on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
6%
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pentera?
What I like the most about Pentera is its solution-oriented approach.
What needs improvement with Pentera?
The licensing and IP management need improvement. When the IP is imported into a system, we cannot withdraw or revoke the license.
What is your primary use case for Pentera?
I am using the OpenIntra solution for pentesting and managing candidates in my environment. I also use this solution for house customers.
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 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 address identified vulnerabilities. These scans cover the servers, other network equi...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blackstone Group Caterpillar Apria Healthcare Taylor Vinters Sandler Capital Management Drawbridge BNP Paribas British Red Cross
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentera vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.