Key Points
With new vulnerabilities appearing every day, quarterly scanning and remediation is no longer enough – continuous vulnerability management has become essential.
The right vulnerability management tool can make this easy by empowering your team to identify, prioritize, and manage security vulnerabilities on an ongoing basis.
Read on for our picks of top vulnerability management solutions for 2024.
TL;DR
Our picks of the best vulnerability management software for 2024
- Intruder (free trial available)
- Probely (free trial available)
- Acunetix (demo request required)
- Tenable Nessus (free trial available)
- Qualys (free trial available)
- Rapid 7 (free trial available)
Next up, we're going to take a closer look at each vulnerability management solution, checking out what they offer, how user-friendly they are, and the overall value they add to the mix.
1. Intruder
Who uses it and why it stands out
Intruder is a vulnerability management solution that makes it super easy to find, manage, and fix security issues across internal and external infrastructures, web apps, and APIs, including 140,000+ infrastructure checks and 75+ checks for applications.
It runs proactive scans for emerging threats which automatically check systems for newly released vulnerabilities, and continuously monitors networks to help users track their attack surfaces. Results are prioritized by context so users can focus on the most critical vulnerabilities.
Intruder integrates with CI/CD pipelines to streamline DevOps, as well as compliance platforms to automate security compliance processes.
Intruder's user-friendliness is praised by CISOs, security analysts, and non-technical users alike. If you're not a cybersecurity pro but still want to keep things safe, Intruder's got your back.
Key features
- 24/7 proactive threat response, including continuous network monitoring which shows you what’s exposed to the internet
- Automated asset discovery for cloud infrastructures
- Intruder’s reporting and analytics make it simple to track the progress of your vulnerability management program over time, with in-depth insights into your weaknesses, scans, and attack surface
Pricing model
Intruder offers a 14-day free trial, followed by three pricing tiers Essential, Pro, and Premium. You can pay monthly or annually. Learn more.
2. Probely
Who uses it and why it stands out
Probely is a dynamic application security testing (DAST) scanner and vulnerability management tool for web apps and APIs. It helps organizations identify the software vulnerabilities that really matter, cutting out unnecessary noise and reducing false positives. Probely offers a number of integrations to streamline vulnerability management across the organization.
Key features
- Specializes in reducing false positives by focusing on significant threats, boosting the relevance of security alerts
- Provides clear, actionable advice on how to remediate security weaknesses
- Probely's spider utilizes Headless-Chrome to crawl and index interactive JavaScript applications and Single Page Applications (SPAs)
Pricing plans
Probely provides a tiered approach to its pricing structure, starting with a Lite option that includes 5 free credits each month. Users needing more extensive capabilities can buy more. Beyond the Lite tier, Probely offers both Pro and Enterprise plans.
3. Acunetix
Who uses it and why it stands out
Acunetix is a vulnerability management software for web applications, checking for over 7000 vulnerabilities, including zero day vulnerabilities. It integrates with other dev and security tools, making it a good fit for DevSecOps practices. It's mostly used by large enterprise organizations with a dedicated security team.
Key features
- Utilize both DAST and IAST scanning
- Record macros to automate authenticated vulnerability scanning
- Integration with development and security tools
Pricing plans
Acunetix doesn't offer a free trial or different pricing tiers, you'll need to contact them for more information.
4. Tenable Nessus
Who uses it and why it stands out
With the ability to scan 65,000 common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs), Nessus is one of the more powerful tools on the market and offers great coverage. As enterprise vulnerability management software, it performed highly in our comprehensive analysis. The platform usually gets new checks out faster than other vulnerability management tools, which is why we chose it as one of the scanners that powers our Pro plan.
Key features
- Highly configurable and customizable, which is a good fit for technical users
- Features detailed, customizable reports and compliance checks for standards like PCI DSS and HIPAA.
- Detects the latest CVEs whilst keeping track of legacy vulnerabilities
Pricing plans
Tenable Nessus Professional comes with a starting price of $3,590 a year. If you're looking to dive deeper with web apps, cloud setups, or checking out your external attack surface, that will be extra. And, if you need help along the way, support services will set you back another $400 each year. There is a free 7-day trial available.
5. Qualys
Who uses it and why it stands out
Qualys is a vulnerability management tool with broad scanning capabilities and flexibility. It can scan multiple systems from a single console, including cloud-based environments and internal networks. You can create and schedule custom reports that segment and prioritize data for responsive vulnerability management. Due to the software’s advanced capabilities, Qualys is better suited to highly technical users.
Key features
- Constantly updated with latest CVEs so new threats don’t go undetected
- An integrated view of all an organization’s assets, vulnerabilities, and compliance status
- Finds forgotten devices and helps teams better organize host assets
Pricing plans
There is no pricing information available on its website so you'll need to get in touch with the organization for a quote.
6. Rapid 7
Who uses it and why it stands out
Rapid7 is a vulnerability management system and endpoint analytics solution for companies with large IT networks, especially financial institutions. Its InsightVM solution provides in-depth reports for established security teams and CISOs, but can be overkill for smaller organizations who don’t have the resources and in-house expertise to understand, investigate and fix findings.
Key features
- Prioritize vulnerabilities on a scale from 1 to 1000 to give insight into those being actively exploited or the likelihood of exploitation in a real attack
- Create custom dashboards and use queries to monitor your progress.
- Gathers data from all endpoints, including those that seldom connect to the corporate network.
Pricing plans
Rapid 7 offers a range of pricing options based on the number of assets being scanned.
Features to look out for in a vulnerability management solution
Vulnerability management definitely isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of deal. Every organization's different, with its own set of needs. So, when picking out the best vulnerability management solution for you, here's what you might want to consider:
- Scheduling: Look for vulnerability management tools that let you schedule scans and reports when it suits you best, like during off-peak hours. This way, keeping an eye on your network becomes a breeze.
- Frequency: How often can you run vulnerability scans? It's important that the tool lets you customize your scanning frequency to suit your requirements. Check out this guide for tailoring scan frequency to fit your needs: How often should I scan?
- Reporting: Good vulnerability management systems should generate reports that are not only easy to read but also detailed enough to be actionable, and presentable and understandable to all your stakeholders, including technical teams and customers. This means you've got to have a bit of everything: a big-picture view for the execs and the nitty-gritty details for the IT team. Learn more about the vulnerability management metrics that matter most.
- APIs and Integrations: Find out if the tool offers an API for integrating with other systems, to help with automation and workflows. Your vulnerability management tool should slide right into your CI/CD pipelines, so you can kick off vulnerability scans automatically. Integrations with ticketing systems and tools like Slack or Teams are also essential to streamlining vulnerability management processes across your whole organization.
- Compliance: Make sure the vulnerability scanner fits with your specific compliance needs. Whether it's SOC 2, ISO 27001, or any other regulatory standard, the right vulnerability management software helps you spot the vulnerabilities that matter for these regulations and guides you on how to fix them. Being able to whip up reports focused on compliance is hugely important. It makes audits way less of a headache. Intruder integrates with compliance platforms like Drata and Vanta, taking the headache out of preparing for audits by automatically sending evidence of your scans in the right format.
- Cloud Integrations: Investigate whether the vulnerability management tool can integrate with your cloud service providers as this is essential for keeping your cloud-based apps and infrastructure safe. Intruder's CloudBot can automatically discover and scan your cloud assets to keep them safe from threats. If you're using cloud services like AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Microsoft Azure, having this feature makes it much easier to maintain a strong security posture.
- Proactive Scans: A tool that not only automates security processes, but is proactive in keeping you secure, is essential to staying one step ahead in a constantly changing threat landscape. Intruder's Emerging Threat Scans (ETS) proactively check for new vulnerabilities so your systems are protected against the latest threats.
Choose the Best Software to Manage and Prioritize Threats
Looking for a vulnerability management tool that gives you all this and more? Learn more about Intruder or get started with a 14 day free trial.
Dan heads up the Security team at Intruder. His background is in .NET software engineering, consulting, and penetration testing.
