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Tenable Nessus vs Tenable Security Center comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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
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)
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tenable Security Center
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.9%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 8.4%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Security Center is 4.2%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
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The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly.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.
OndrejKOVAC - PeerSpot reviewer
Empower clients with risk-based vulnerability management through continuous workflow and valuable insights
Tenable Security Center could improve by implementing more dynamic data displays and translating reports into European languages. This is especially relevant in Central Eastern Europe, where clients often require reports in local languages. Additionally, the licensing model could be more flexible for managed security providers, similar to a pay-as-you-go model.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"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."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"The results are not that bad, but the key selling point is that it is an affordable tool set."
"The plug-in text information is quite useful."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the self-updating engine."
"The product's most valuable features are vulnerability and asset management. It can define the rules and validate the configuration."
"We looked at Tenable, Qualys and Rapid7. We found Tenable was the best of all three."
"Tenable Nessus has provided increased visibility across the organization's servers."
"It is easy to deploy and easy to use. Its reporting is good. From this reporting, you can see the pain point in your network, which makes it easy to fix them. It is easy to understand the reports and export them."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is vulnerability detection."
"The most valuable features of Tenable SC are scanning, reporting, dashboards, and automation."
"The solution is completely stable and operation is user-friendly."
"Very customizable with a lot of templates."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the vulnerability assessment."
"The feature we've liked most recently was being able to take the YARA rules from FireEye and put them into Tenable's scan for the most recent SolarWinds exploit. That was really useful."
"This product has the best results in terms of the lowest number of false-positives and false-negatives."
"The tool's dashboard and reporting capabilities match our company's needs since we are able to modify the basic view to create a new dashboard, and it works out very well for our needs."
"Tenable's most valuable features are the credential scan, vulnerability reports, and vulnerability ratings (VPR)."
 

Cons

"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."
"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"It would be a good idea if they have a simulation of attacks or a use case for finding a new vulnerability or dealing with a zero-day attack."
"The report for counters is too simple and would be improved by a dashboard."
"Model OS costs (and its segregation schema for individual modules)."
"Remediation needs improvement."
"Some things in the user interface could be better. The user interface could allow more adjustments to plugins. The price could also be better."
"The tool needs to upgrade asset tracking."
"The professional version is not very scalable."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with different vendors' IPS solutions. The ACLs and IPS policies signatures should be enabled based on the results of Tenable Nessus automatically, we currently have to do it manually which is very time-consuming. It has done a good job integrating with Fortinet but we would like it to be better integrated with other solutions that we have."
"The reports and plugins for reports and scans could benefit from enhancements."
"Tenable's technical support has declined in quality over time. While they used to be excellent, achieving ratings of eight or nine, they now rate around six or seven due to longer response times and less thorough assistance."
"The web application scanning area can be improved."
"The web application is not very functional."
"Tenable's reporting engine needs improvement. It needs to be more efficient and add more features."
"The reporting needs a lot of work on the template."
"Tenable has some problems with agents going offline during scanning and lag between agents and the security center."
"The solution should include compliance-based scanning."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Cost-wise, it's an affordable tool."
"We pay approximately $2,500 on a yearly basis."
"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."
"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."
"The product is free."
"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."
"The price can start at €10,000 ($13,000 USD) for between 500 and 1,000 assets, and the price can climb into the millions as more assets are added."
"We're able to save because we don't have to employ more staff members to help wit ht he scheduling of the scans, running the reports or sending them out to the systems owners. That alone is a big ROI for us."
"I use a local license to perform penetration testing and I'm pretty happy with everything when it comes to pricing and licensing."
"The pricing depends upon the number of IPs."
"The tool costs around 15,000 Saudi riyals monthly."
"We're happy with the licensing cost and find it affordable."
"This solution's price is quite high."
"I rate the solution's price as seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. The tool is quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
5%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

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?
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...
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...
What do you like most about Tenable SC?
The tool's dashboard and reporting capabilities match our company's needs since we are able to modify the basic view ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable SC?
The price of Tenable Security Center is not so high; it's relatively a cheaper solution.
What needs improvement with Tenable SC?
The reason for rating it an eight out of ten is that the initial setup could be easier; the setup is rather difficult...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific
Find out what your peers are saying about Tenable Nessus vs. Tenable Security Center and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.