Prisma Cloud vs Tenable
- ✦ CSPM
- ✦ CWPP
- ✦ CIEM
- ✦ Vulnerability Management
- ✦ Exposure Management (Tenable One)
- ✦ Cloud Security Posture
Prisma Cloud and Tenable are both Cloud Security (CNAPP/CSPM) tools. Compare features, pricing, and ratings below to find the best fit for your team.
When to Choose Prisma Cloud vs Tenable
The question that matters: “In what situation will I regret choosing A over B after 3 months?”
Prisma Cloud's Checkov integration scans Terraform and CloudFormation templates in the PR pipeline, blocking misconfigured infrastructure before it deploys rather than finding it in production.
Prisma Cloud image scanning identifies which Dockerfile layer introduced a vulnerable package, cutting remediation investigation from 30 minutes to under 5 for containerized workloads.
Prisma Cloud's runtime defense captures process execution chains in containers, flagging anomalous child processes spawned from a web server that indicate active exploitation.
Tenable.io correlates vulnerability severity with asset criticality scores, surfacing the top 3% of vulnerabilities that pose real risk versus thousands of theoretical findings.
Tenable Identity Exposure maps Active Directory misconfigurations to known attack paths like AS-REP Roasting, showing how attackers could escalate from a standard user to Domain Admin.
Tenable Attack Surface Management discovers internet-facing assets not in the asset inventory, attributing orphaned domains and IP ranges back to the owning organization.
Pricing Comparison & PlansHigh· Verified Jul 2, 2026
Prisma Cloud Plans
Paid plans only
Business Edition
Contact Sales- ✓Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
- ✓Compliance monitoring and reporting
- ✓Asset inventory and discovery
- ✓Infrastructure as Code (IaC) scanning
- ✓Threat detection and anomaly detection
Enterprise Edition
Contact SalesBest for: Get the full CNAPP suite with CSPM, CWP, and 24/7 support
- ✓Full Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)
- ✓Cloud Workload Protection (CWP)
- ✓Web Application and API Security (WAAS)
- ✓Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
- ✓Container and Kubernetes security
Tenable Plans
Free tier available
Nessus Essentials
FreeBest for: This free plan is ideal for individuals or small teams needing basic vulnerability scanning capabilities
- ✓Basic vulnerability scanning
- ✓Suitable for basic evaluation
- ✓Limited plugin access
Tenable Web App Scanning
Contact SalesBest for: Focusing on web application security, this plan provides dynamic and static analysis for web apps
- ✓Web application security
- ✓Cloud-based scanning
- ✓Vulnerability management for web applications
- ✓Asset tracking for web applications
Tenable One Foundation
Contact SalesBest for: Tenable One Foundation unifies vulnerability management across IT, OT, and cloud environments
- ✓Unified asset visibility
- ✓Vulnerability management
- ✓Unified risk scoring
- ✓AI discovery
- ✓Cloud workload protection
Tenable One Advanced
Contact SalesBest for: The Advanced tier of Tenable One offers enhanced exposure management with advanced analytics and attack path analysis
- ✓Integrated intelligence
- ✓Ticketing
- ✓Third-party data connectors
- ✓AI workload and agent protection
- ✓Cloud security posture management
Tenable Security Center
Contact SalesBest for: Tenable Security Center provides on-premises vulnerability management and compliance auditing
- ✓Identify and prioritize vulnerabilities
- ✓Risk-based prioritization
- ✓Centralized security management
- ✓SaaS and on-premise deployment options
- ✓Integrations and APIs for SIEM, ITSM, DevSecOps
Nessus Professional
$283/license/moBest for: Designed for professional vulnerability assessment, this plan offers advanced scanning and reporting
- ✓Real-time vulnerability updates
- ✓Unlimited vulnerability scanning
- ✓Pre-built policies for configuration audits
- ✓Compliance audits
- ✓Vulnerability scoring for prioritization
Capability Breakdown
12 differences found across 20 standardized features
- •CSPM
- •CWPP
- •CIEM
- •Container Security
- •Kubernetes Security
- •Serverless Security
- •IaC Scanning (Checkov)
- •API Security
- •Cloud Network Security
- •CDR
- •Software Supply Chain Security
- •Compliance Frameworks
- •Data Security
- •CI/CD Pipeline Security
- •Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- •Multi-Cloud Support
- •Vulnerability Management
- •Exposure Management (Tenable One)
- •Cloud Security Posture
- •OT/ICS Security (Tenable OT)
- •Attack Surface Management
- •Web Application Scanning
- •Container Security
- •Identity Exposure
- •Active Directory Security
- •Compliance Frameworks
- •Risk-Based Prioritization
- •Integration with Ticketing
- •Nessus Scanner (Industry Standard)
- •Asset Inventory
- •Threat Intelligence
- •API
Strengths & Limitations
Evaluative strengths and weaknesses: not feature lists
- +Broadest CNAPP feature set: covers every cloud security use case
- +Deep PANW ecosystem integration
- +Strong WAF and network security integration
- +Checkov open-source IaC scanner drives community adoption
- −These tools have a set of signatures or rules that will alert you whenever something meets the criteria.
- −It does not provide runtime security or protection for Windows Server.
- −If I were to improve Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, I would enhance the integration with other vendors.
- +43k+ customers: industry standard for vulnerability management
- +Nessus scanner is the most widely trusted vuln scanner
- +Tenable One covers cloud, OT, identity and web in one platform
- +Strong risk-based prioritization engine
- −Tenable could improve by integrating Gemini or ChatGPT for deeper analysis in risk assessment, making it easier to analyze risks w
- −The integration part is not good because five years ago, Tenable Nessus had more integration capability.
- −I would not personally speak to what other features I would like to see in future updates of Tenable Nessus; this is perhaps more
- −The most that Tenable Nessus could improve is its speed because they might have put a lot of effort into compatibility issues that
- −The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly.
At a Glance
Recent Price History
Tenable updated "Nessus Professional" from $332.5/mo to Custom
Price change · May 30, 2026
Tenable added a new "Tenable One Foundation" plan (Custom pricing)
Plan added · May 30, 2026
Tenable added a new "Nessus Expert" plan (Custom pricing)
Plan added · May 30, 2026
Tenable removed the "Tenable One" plan
Plan removed · May 30, 2026
Tenable added a new "Tenable Web App Scanning" plan (Custom pricing)
Plan added · May 30, 2026
Prisma Cloud removed the "Enterprise" plan
Plan removed · May 21, 2026
Prisma Cloud added a new "Enterprise Edition" plan
Plan added · May 21, 2026
Prisma Cloud added a new "Business Edition" plan
Plan added · May 21, 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Comparisons
Prisma Cloud
TenableFree planSources & Data Trail · Prisma Cloud
- 1.Official Website·Official vendor website
- 2.G2·G2 verified reviews · 4.1/5 · 112 reviews
- 3.Capterra·Capterra verified reviews
- 4.TrustRadius·TrustRadius verified reviews
- 5.PeerSpot·PeerSpot enterprise peer reviews
Sources & Data Trail · Tenable
- 1.Official Pricing Page·Source of verified tiers(Checked: 2026-07-02)
- 2.Official Website·Official vendor website
- 3.G2·G2 verified reviews · 4.5/5 · 122 reviews
- 4.Capterra·Capterra verified reviews · 4.4/5
- 5.TrustRadius·TrustRadius verified reviews
- 6.PeerSpot·PeerSpot enterprise peer reviews