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Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (27th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (6th)
Rapid7 InsightVM
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (4th)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
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.
Mahmoud Elhamaymy - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable scanning and integration strengthen security infrastructure
InsightVM has a very organized GUI with ease of use. The vulnerability scans are reliable, and the credential scan is a beneficial feature. The solution is efficient and trustworthy. It's based on the CVSS risk scoring system, which is well-recognized and effective. The integration capabilities through APIs allow easy integration with existing security infrastructure.
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The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly.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

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"I have been in contact with technical support and they are not bad."
"The assessment is most valuable."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the agent and the scanning."
"InsightVM offers a robust platform for identifying, prioritizing, and addressing vulnerabilities across an organization's IT infrastructure."
"InsightVM has a very organized GUI with ease of use."
"We feel the interface is very good. It is very easy to use, even a nontechnical person can use it."
"The most valuable feature is the site scanning, where we can provide a complete subnet and what it is we need to scan on those devices."
"The most important aspect of the solution is that it rarely gives false positives, especially compared to other products. It provides very clear reports for our IT teams to look at."
"It allows me to prioritize efforts and utilize effective technical resources."
"Tenable Nessus has a good performance, is very user-friendly, and is easy to use."
"The scanning capabilities are most valuable when compared to Nessus."
"The stability is very good."
"The reports are pretty nice and easy to understand."
"I like this solution because it is complete. It can scan and check many types of vulnerabilities. It can also check for compliance."
"The features of Tenable Nessus that I have found most valuable are its reliability and its ability to collate a dependable output, where we are able to get the same vulnerability when we test manually. The output is quite reliable."
"I like the fact that it was not expensive. I like that it's user-friendly."
 

Cons

"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."
"A definite improvement would be to make it easier to run ad-hoc scans without needing to assign the asset to a site or group."
"Rapid7 InsightVM should improve its threat intelligence."
"Reporting could be expanded."
"InsightVM is getting a little stale and is in danger of falling behind its competitors."
"Within InsightVM, there is no feature to assign a ticket. If we can have more API calls, we can do that from InsightVM."
"This solution creates false-positives which can cause issues with reporting."
"The solution should include a tighter integration with third-party threat modeling and threat intelligence tools."
"It is still not a fully cloud-based solution. It will be helpful for customers if it is a complete cloud solution. It is a hybrid solution at the moment."
"It would be nice for the professional module to include some of the reports available in the expert module."
"Tenable Nessus is not feasible for a large company."
"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."
"In Nessus Professional, the main drawback was that we could have a single-user login password. So it could be better in terms of security."
"The problems I faced with Tenable Nessus were related to its dashboard's customization capabilities and its ability to provide data to third-party sources."
"There could be an integration between Tenable Nessus and other Tenable products. It will help us manage all the solutions using one dashboard."
"They should improve the I/O reporting and the customized spreadsheet export feature."
"It wasn't very clear how the scripts are running the scans. There's information about the script but it's not straightforward. The script information for each of the plugins should be available, but it doesn't give us straightforward direct information about how it was executed. That needs to be more clear."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The solution is a bit more reasonably priced than other products."
"Pricing is reasonable because we pay according to asset usage. We can define our assets and sites according to our preference."
"We purchase annual licenses."
"The license is IP based. How many IPs you are using to scan is the amount of the license you have to buy. The number of users doesn't matter; many users can use it or only person. It depends on the culture of the organization."
"The license is annual and this is the optimal approach when it comes to most software."
"We have an annual license to use Rapid7 InsightVM and if we want to extend it, we will possibly choose more than one year."
"InsightVM is an expensive product, especially compared to its competitors, at around a million NOK per year."
"We pay approximately $2,500 on a yearly basis."
"The price is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."
"The solution is worth the cost. It's a good investment."
"Tenable Nessus is affordable."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is too expensive for each service center."
"Our organization is huge so our license costs $30,000."
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Answers from the Community

NC
Nov 8, 2021
Nov 8, 2021
You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid7 Insight VM is easy to understand, use, and deploy. This solution supplies many different types of valuable reporting and rarely reports false positives. Rapid7 can easily detect new devices and scan...
See 2 answers
MI
Sep 6, 2021
InsightVM - better functions on granting users different access to different asset groups.  It fits better for our company and is slightly cheaper.
Nov 8, 2021
You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid7 Insight VM is easy to understand, use, and deploy. This solution supplies many different types of valuable reporting and rarely reports false positives. Rapid7 can easily detect new devices and scan endpoints quickly for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, or missing patches. Rapid7 Insight VM will identify the risk and suggest how to resolve the problem. We would like to see the reporting improved to offer some of the options other solutions provide. Rapid7 Insight VM can be a very expensive solution - it is really only for larger enterprise accounts. Integration with other solutions would make Rapid7 Insight VM more desirable. It’s easy to combine local testing with network-based testing using Tenable Nessus, which can easily find vulnerabilities across different platforms and operating systems. Tenable Nessus will identify what nodes you have in place, then provide you with a report identifying each vulnerability found by node. It works quickly and stealthily, and offers clear-cut reporting and the ability to scan for specific vulnerabilities. We would like to see the reporting process with Tenable Nessus improved. Instead of only PDF reports, one option might be to track with an Excel-based structure to better track vulnerabilities and remediation efforts and build reports from there. An option to use the same license for the cloud and on-premises at the same time would be very useful. Conclusion We felt that Tenable Nessus provided better reporting of vulnerabilities per device in a clearer, easier to understand manner. It is a very easy solution to use and makes accountability for tracing and reporting vulnerabilities easy. The flexible scanning options offered by Tenable Nessus are what we found most advantageous.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
42%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
41%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

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?
Pricing for Zafran Security is not expensive. We have a contract for five years, and the cost is lower than other too...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
I would like to see an integration with Check Point firewalls. It's essential for us and they are currently working o...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
We use Zafran Security for threat prioritization. We establish priority to understand which risks should be patched o...
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 do you like most about Rapid7 InsightVM?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 InsightVM?
Rapid7 InsightVM is expensive, possibly one of the highest in pricing among similar products.
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable Nessus?
Tenable Nessus's pricing is adequate if it is fully utilized. The cost is justified by the value it brings in terms o...
 

Also Known As

No data available
InsightVM, NeXpose
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ACS, Acosta, AllianceData, amazon.com, biogen idec, CBRE, CATERPILLAR, Deloitte, COACH, GameStop, IBM
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 InsightVM vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.