Nmap vs. Titania Nipper

If you're a sysadmin, or anyone who's had to deploy network services, you've almost certainly had to use Nmap at some point or other. Need to see what devices are on your LAN? Nmap can tell you that. Want to check which ports your web server has open to the internet? Nmap is your friend.

Nmap is a powerful command-line tool and has many options that require some reading of documentation to get the best out of (although generally straightforward). If the thought of working at the command-line scares you (presumably not if you're reading this review), then you may want a much simpler tool, or at least check out Zenmap GUI.

Incentivized

The tool Titania Nipper is used as a way to improve compliance and risk management, reduce time to market and also provide our customers the needed insight about the possible threats to their network and firewalls. The tool itself we use in conjunction with others, so I can't recommend using only Nipper if a more wide view is needed in terms of vulnerability assessment.

Incentivized

• NMap provides a very fast and a very thorough network "sweep" that allows you to quickly map out exactly what's on your network.
• NMap is highly configurable. The "canned" choices are very good in most instances, but using various switches and options, you can create a very specific scan and get exactly the results you're looking for.
• NMap is easy to use. Even a new administrator will be able to use the graphical version (Zenmap) with efficiency right away.

Incentivized

• Updated database of configuration issues
• Particularly good at Cisco equipment
• Quick overview of issues and conclusions

Incentivized

• exporting, There's a serious lack of ability to export the information in a readable format to present to VPs and such. I always find myself doing a lot of data massaging to get it in a pretty format
• some scans can trigger sensitive IDS/IPS
• SYN scans can be particularly aggressive and cause problems on remote systems.

Incentivized

• Reports
• Support most recent version of the firewalls
• Reduce false positives
• More intuitive dashboard
• Multiple language [support]
• Wizard for configuring the interfaces
• Support really PCI reports

There is a very large support community and a robust selection of add-ons and scripts. Once you get the use down this is one of the most powerful tools and you can find anything you are looking for as far as examples on the web. While not having official support its not lacking by any means.

Incentivized

Alternatives to Nmap (other IP scanners) are often much more limited in what they can do; They often only allow you to scan a specific subset of ports or a limited number of IP addresses in one command. Nmap is unrestricted in that regard. What makes Nmap stand out above the rest, is the complete network analysis package you get with it. It allows IP scanner, network deep-dives, hardware analysis, vulnerability analysis, encryption detailing, and so much more, in one free application

Incentivized

Although Nipper from Titania helps in auditing accurately every device in the network and helps in prioritizing the fixies, it is really useful for the part of the firewall in a network and also for the quick making of reports which are also customizable. But from our experience, the Qualys solution for scanning the networks, although is more costly, it also has more features and options in regards to assessing a network and the elements connected to the network, though it is also somehow less powerful when it comes to creating quick reports. Qualys has a more interface and dashboard approach regarding the results of the scans.

Incentivized

• Nmap with Wireshark is free, so it's been a great combo team to gather info and test.
• It's allowed us to avoid fines from false positives and to fix actual issues ourselves.
• Great for finding hosts, helps keep the network secure.

Incentivized

• We seldom audit the same equipment twice, hence the fixed amount of annual hosts is not very flexible in terms of licensing for our use-case

Incentivized