Qualys VMDR vs. Tenable Nessus

Qualys VMDR is best suited for larger companies with a very large IT asset footprint. Qualys VMDR is not suited for businesses that are small and upcoming as the price for the tool is very expensive and could be a budget sink if not used properly. In our organization we use the Qualys VMDR dashboard and reporting in order to collect any vulnerabilities we miss during our routine audits to ensure that our environment is stable and protected for attacks.

Incentivized

It is an excellent tool for scanning servers, workstations, and network devices to identify missing patches and misconfiguration; we regularly use it to confirm patch effectiveness after the update; it also helps us for preparing audits such as iso 27001, and regulatory requirements, it also helps us to identify open ports and services that violate security.

• Seamless reporting across the different widgets (i.e. TruRisk)
• DEEP-DIVE into an asset's info/vulns
• Baked-in PCI ASV scans that a Qualys QSA can approve

Incentivized

• Nessus is best at performing vulnerability scans, in fact, it gives findings and moreover accurate findings of the assessments. It does not do penetration testing or exploit the vulnerabilities because it is concerned about scanning the systems/applications.
• In fact, Nessus has multiple profiles/policies to perform different types of scans such as, scans oriented for PCI-DSS, malware scans, web application scans, bad shell shock detection scan to name a few.
• Nessus has the ability to classify the vulnerabilities into risk-based categories from critical to even informational which I think is one of the things that separates Nessus from other vulnerability scanners.

Incentivized

• Qualys VMDR can definitely improve on its reporting of assets as we have caught devices not captured in the Qualys VMDR scans.
• We would like to see an improvement on the dashboard interface as it is faulty sometimes.
• Qualys VMDR should focus on more competitive pricing as it is very expensive.

Incentivized

• The tool has lots of options for setting up before scanning any device, this methodology could be simplified further with default configuration for various devices predefined, anyhow we can use this technique by making use of policies.
• For advanced users we cannot disable the plugins inside the plugin groups, we can enable the whole set of plugins at a time, for few hundreds its ok, but thousands of plugins are of waste of resource and time.

Incentivized

Next to Veeam (which is a tremendous product for backup/DR) this is the best service/software I have used in the past three decades. Should be called the Swiss Army Knife of security.

Incentivized

Nessus is best and easy to use application for Vulnerabilities finding and reporting, it has multiple platforms and wide scope covering almost all devices for security improvement so far, thus we are very likely to continue its services.

Incentivized

infrastructure to identify vulnerabilities

Tenable Nessus is a great product and provides a lot of value, but it is difficult to set up and use and the amount of data it generates can be overwhelming. It does help us prioritize based on the severity of the detection, however there are sometimes mitigating factors that we have implemented that Nessus does not account for, which causes lots of noise in the reports.

Incentivized

Always available with the exception on maint windows

Incentivized

Once in a while it would be slow -

Incentivized

This is iron but I am giving it 5 star and I can give more If I can do because they are best in support. So once you own this product they will assign a dedicated support for you and when you are under the weather with anything just connect them with anything call, ping or ticket they will come like Genie.

I haven't needed to contact support yet. But issues are easily solved with a quick internet search which means support and by extension, the larger community are involved and knowledgeable.

Incentivized

Not really - the integrations via connectors is not heavy lifting. Any complexity has to do with a service that requires more steps (i.e. AWS/GCP)

Incentivized

It is a very similar tool but Qualys VMDR is much better when it comes to reporting and solutions provided. Asset management is really good in Qualys VMDR. Qualys VMDR support is really quick , you can get a TPM if you run into any issues. Qualys VMDR has wide variety of scanning options which lacks in tenable.

Incentivized

Sometimes when we identify a vulnerability with Nessus that has an exploit, we made a proof of concept with Metasploit in order to show to the IT managers the importance of the software/hardware hardening.

Incentivized

MOSTLY good - but as noted having all features purchased on portal only - nothing that is not purchased.

Incentivized

Outside some pretty arcane apps or OS this is painless. The problem - and self-inflicted - is that older stuff is not supported.

Incentivized

• Cut down on manual efforts to investigate or remediate vulnerabilities, which can be a big driver of ROI
• Avoidance of potential incidents with upfront risk mitigation
• Patching efficiency gains

Incentivized

• Nessus certainly has a positive impact while me while performing my job, either as security research, or performing vulnerability assessments for clients. It gives a lot of information about the system/application after performing scans. The number of false positives is also less compared to other vulnerability scanners.
• The professional edition is very useful as policy templates available in this edition are very handy and useful even to perform compliance scan like PCI DSS scan.
• Also, the ability to export the scan results into reports in formats like HTML, PDF is very useful which could be for performing system/application reviews.

Incentivized