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Pentera vs XM Cyber comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.2
Pentera automates security tests, proving valuable for retests, but rising licensing costs pose ROI challenges for some users.
Sentiment score
7.3
XM Cyber enhances vulnerability management by reducing staffing needs and improving risk remediation, saving over $60,000 annually.
Some customers consider the ROI favorable, but facing difficulties now due to changes in the licensing model, which has made it more expensive compared to last year.
It's reduced the timescale to remediate vulnerabilities that are identified as representing a high risk.
There was a specific issue that our other security tooling did not pick up, but XM Cyber did.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
Pentera's support team is reliable and responsive, but documentation needs updating; users rate support highly despite some inconsistency.
Sentiment score
6.3
XM Cyber provides outstanding customer support, praised for responsiveness despite some organizational challenges during internal changes.
The customer support is fantastic; it's probably some of the best we've received across all our security vendors.
Customer support for XM Cyber is good, responsive, and it follows up on issues.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Pentera is highly scalable with adaptable equipment requirements, earning strong satisfaction ratings across various enterprise environments.
Sentiment score
7.1
XM Cyber's scalable, agent-based model is intuitive, reliable, and suits large enterprises, fostering user confidence through responsive security.
This responsiveness indicates a strong partnership; a security partner that listens to their customers.
Its scalability is great; it's easy to deploy and fully scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Pentera is praised for high stability, with most users rating it highly despite minor initial setup concerns.
Sentiment score
7.8
XM Cyber is stable and scalable, efficiently resolving issues without disrupting performance in complex IT environments.
We have quite a complex and large IT estate, and we've certainly experienced no limitations or problems arising from the ability of XM Cyber's product to scale across that estate.
 

Room For Improvement

Pentera struggles with cost, licensing flexibility and needs better virtualization, dashboards, hardware support, and detailed credential information.
Users seek improved integration, enhanced vulnerability exposure, better pricing, and AI tool integration in XM Cyber.
When the IP is imported into a system, we cannot withdraw or revoke the license.
We push the boundaries with digital twins; I understand XM Cyber uses a similar concept of graph databases to map environments.
We intend to develop closer integration between XM Cyber and the other tools that help us tackle the issue of threats and vulnerabilities across our IT estate.
The part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IBM i specific equipment.
 

Setup Cost

Pentera's pricing receives mixed reviews, though many appreciate its value in effectively assessing ransomware protection.
We have a large, complicated estate, and in the licensing discussions, we were keen not to have the cost balloon because of the complication, the number of PCs and servers that we have.
 

Valuable Features

Pentera offers automated vulnerability assessments with valued features like attack surface mapping, AI reporting, and quick, effective processes.
XM Cyber enhances security by simulating attacks, prioritizing risks, and streamlining management, significantly improving operational efficiency and reducing exposure.
We can automate the Pentera processes by automatically creating scenarios to validate the system.
Our loss exposure amount has reduced significantly, leading to two big wins: our loss exposure amount has gone down, and we have direct savings from focusing our team's time on what's important, allowing them to work on other business benefits and generate value for the company.
By far, the best feature of XM Cyber is being able to map out the way vulnerabilities can be exploited based on what they call the choke points in the network where the path that a bad actor would take comes closest to assets within our environment that are most vulnerable but also most valuable.
XM Cyber allows us to quantify the risk, and we are able to track remediation, so we can quantify the risk at an executive level and also to a technical IT team.
 

Categories and Ranking

Pentera
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Penetration Testing Services (2nd), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (2nd)
XM Cyber
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Controls Monitoring (3rd), Vulnerability Management (30th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (20th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Pentera and XM Cyber aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Pentera is designed for Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) and holds a mindshare of 28.5%, down 29.5% compared to last year.
XM Cyber, on the other hand, focuses on Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), holds 16.2% mindshare, down 26.2% since last year.
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Pentera28.5%
Cymulate20.0%
Picus Security17.2%
Other34.3%
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
XM Cyber16.2%
Cymulate16.3%
Wiz Code14.6%
Other52.9%
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)
 

Featured Reviews

Sabbir Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive attack surface coverage and real-world threat emulation strengthen security while licensing models need improvement
Comprehensive Attack Surface includes several features. Omni Attack Surface discovers, assesses, and exploits vulnerabilities across both internal networks and external assets, including cloud environments from a single platform. External Attack Surface Management (EASM) and Internal Network Validation test internal security controls and identify weaknesses within the internal network. Automated Penetration Testing features are provided through the Pentera Surface module. Surface provides automated validation and penetration testing features with a proactive, continuous, and highly realistic approach to cybersecurity validation, helping organizations understand and reduce their true cyber exposure. They have AI-based reporting that leverages AI to identify patterns of exploitability over time, aggregate results across sites, and highlight recurring weaknesses. They offer two types of reports: an elaborate technical report for CTOs and an Executive Summary for management. When customers see the reports after completing the POC, they are impressed by how detailed the technical report is, while management can understand what actions need to be taken to protect their network and infrastructure. Recent Gartner reports indicate that traditional VAPT companies perform vulnerability testing at specific times, which creates security gaps. Pentera provides continuous validation, running 24/7 in the infrastructure. This means when any vulnerability appears due to firmware upgrades, OS updates, or software changes, it can be automatically identified in real-time.
Stephen Owen - PeerSpot reviewer
Has significantly improved risk visibility and optimized remediation efforts across dynamic environments
We tightly integrate with APIs, consuming feeds and open source data. We have integrated with XM Cyber, and we are elevating ourselves with AI and MCP tools as we view this as a forerunner to reducing the workload for our agents and IT staff. We're pushing all our security partners to provide AI and MCP tools. Our vision is for them to offer a chat interface where a junior IT or an experienced infrastructure engineer can ask for what needs to be patched next without using an interface. Their current interface is very usable and professional, ranking in the top tier of applications. Their reporting is good, offering custom reports, and their API integration is a new capability that serves us well. We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions. However, everything has been very good. We push the boundaries with digital twins; I understand XM Cyber uses a similar concept of graph databases to map environments. I would like access to that and querying languages, enabling more informed business decisions. XM Cyber sees much of our estate, which is beneficial for making informed decisions, and we can harness those insights and data for business analytics. For instance, it could help us gain insights into change management—if a particular server impacts another and that server is supported by yet another server, we could glean significant insights for change management meetings.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

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 model has changed from earlier versions. Previously, there was a 500 IP cap, and customers needed to buy a minimum of 500 IP and consider 500 domains. In Bangladesh, many large organi...
What is your primary use case for Pentera?
Common use cases include several features. The POC is completed before any customer goes for procurement. Once the POC is done, customers appreciate features such as comprehensive attack surface co...
What do you like most about XM Cyber?
The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for XM Cyber?
We have to pay standard licensing fees. There are no additional costs. It is an expensive product. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with XM Cyber?
XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blackstone Group Caterpillar Apria Healthcare Taylor Vinters Sandler Capital Management Drawbridge BNP Paribas British Red Cross
Hamburg Port Authority, Plymouth Rock Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentera vs. XM Cyber and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
869,089 professionals have used our research since 2012.