Tenable Nessus is the deepest authenticated scanner in the category, and for a large security team running Tenable.io at scale it's a powerful platform. But for an SMB, Nessus Professional's ~$4,390/yr, the paywall on its VPR prioritization, and the separate modules for attack-surface and container scanning add up fast. Perimeter gives you the full triad — external ASM, internal authenticated scanning, container/SBOM — with EPSS + KEV prioritization in one flat-priced tool, starting at $0.
| Capability | Perimeter | Tenable Nessus / Tenable.io |
|---|---|---|
| Internal authenticated scanning | Yes (OpenVAS via Lookout agent) | Yes (Nessus — its strength) |
| External attack-surface management | Included | Separate Tenable ASM product |
| Container / SBOM scanning | Included (Trivy) | Separate / higher tier |
| Exploit-first ranking (EPSS + KEV over CVSS) | Free + transparent weights | VPR is proprietary / higher tier |
| FP suppression + reasons + feedback loop | Yes, transparent | Manual mute / recast |
| Findings = signed compliance evidence | HMAC-signed records | Add-on / templates |
| Cross-product evidence graph | Sightline + Bastion + Ward | No |
| Pricing model | Flat per-company, generous caps | Per-asset / per-product |
| Starting price | $0 | Nessus Pro ~$4,390/yr |
Tenable/Nessus pricing and packaging per Tenable's published materials at time of writing; we update comparisons as vendors change. "Tenable", "Nessus" and "VPR" are trademarks of Tenable, Inc.
If you have a dedicated security team, thousands of assets, and you need Nessus's full depth of authenticated checks and compliance audit policies across a large enterprise fleet, Tenable.io is a proven platform and Nessus is the gold standard for deep authenticated scanning. Perimeter's edge is for the SMB and MSP that needs the triad — external + internal + container — with exploit-aware prioritization and audit-ready evidence, without enterprise pricing or stitching three products together.
Tenable's VPR is a proprietary score. Perimeter's is open: 0.40·CVSS + 0.30·EPSS + 0.20·KEV + 0.10·asset-criticality, normalized 0–100 and tunable, with EPSS and KEV ranking ahead of raw CVSS. You can see exactly why a KEV-listed RCE on a crown-jewel host outranks an unauth low on a dev box — and adjust the weights to your environment. The de-noise engine then flags likely false positives with a reason for every call (never suppressing a KEV-listed or multi-engine-confirmed finding), and when you mark one false-positive or real it remembers your verdict across rescans. See how prioritization works.
And the output isn't just a report: every finding exports as an HMAC-signed evidence record mapped to PCI / HIPAA / SOC 2 / ISO / CMMC — tamper-evident audit evidence, not a CSV. See compliance evidence.