Top 10 Vulnerability Management Systems (Reviewed)

Vulnerability management is the critical process of identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and mitigating security vulnerabilities to protect your systems and business data from cyberattacks. However, with numerous options and factors such as target systems, budget, timelines, and risk tolerance to consider, selecting the right software can be overwhelming. 

To simplify this process, our security experts have hand-picked a list of the top 10 vulnerability management systems that excel in scan quality, continuous monitoring, human support, tailored reporting, and patch management.

Top 10 Vulnerability Management Systems (Reviewed)

1. Astra Security
2. Rapid7
3. Tenable Nessus
4. Breachlock
5. Intruder
6. Arctic Wolf
7. Alert Logic
8. Orca Security 
9. Symantec
10. SecureWorks

What is a Vulnerability Management System?

A Vulnerability Management System or VMS is a comprehensive suite of tools, processes, and methodologies designed to proactively identify, assess, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities within your organization’s IT infrastructure.

As such, it is responsible for continuously scanning your systems, networks, applications, and all other digital assets for vulnerabilities ranging from software bugs and misconfigurations to outdated systems and weak passwords.

Essential Features in a Vulnerability Management System

Asset Discovery and Inventory

A robust vulnerability management system facilitates accurate identification of all assets within your IT environment, including hardware, applications, network devices, and cloud infrastructure. Such a comprehensive discovery mechanism is crucial for establishing a baseline understanding of the attack surface and addressing all potential vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability Scanning and Assessment

Choose a VMS software that offers comprehensive scanning and assessment capabilities to enable holistic coverage across various assets, with in-depth insights into the severity and potential impact of identified risks and actionable remediation guidance.

Risk Prioritization

To ensure efficient resource allocation, choose a vulnerability management solution that effectively prioritizes vulnerabilities based on factors like criticality, exploitability, potential impact, and business context. 

Prioritize vendors whose customizable risk-scoring mechanisms align with your organizational risk tolerance without compromising industrial standards. 

Patch Management

Prioritize a vulnerability management software that automates the patch deployment process whenever possible, by providing features like vulnerability assessment before and after patching, patch approval workflows, and integration with configuration management databases (CMDBs).

Tailor-Fitted Reporting

Look for a vulnerability management tool that generates comprehensive reports on vulnerability status, remediation progress, and overall security posture with customizations to tailor info to specific audiences, such as IT teams, management, and compliance officers.

Seamless Integration

Choose a vulnerability management system that facilitates automated threat response and management by seamlessly integrating with workflow and CI/CD tools such as Slack, JIRA, CircleCI, intrusion detection and prevention systems, firewalls, and other SIEM solutions. 

Recommended Reading: Detailed guide to vulnerability scanning process and types

3 Best Vulnerability Management Systems Compared

10 Best Vulnerability Management Systems (Expert’s Opinion)

1. Astra Security

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: Unlimited continuous scans and manual pentests for applications, APIs, and cloud infrastructures
• Accuracy: Zero false positives
• Vulnerability management: Comes with dynamic vulnerability management dashboard 
• Compliance: GDPR, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO27001, and SOC2
• Integrations: Slack, JIRA, CircleeCI, GitHub, GitLab, and more
• Support: AI-powered chatbot with dedicated human support
• Price: Starting at $1999/yr

As one of the best vulnerability management systems, Astra Security blends automation with manual expertise to run 9,300+ AI-supported security tests and compliance checks across various types of assets and digital infrastructure to proactively strengthen your security.

With clear, actionable, and custom reporting, industry-specific AI-augmented test cases, and zero false positives with vetted scans, Astra simplifies vulnerability management end-to-end while our in-house penetester, with 6K+ CVEs to their name, provides personalized support. 

Lastly, its seamless tech stack integrations and real-time expert support make it the perfect choice across industries and geographies.

Pros:

• Facilitates identification of business logic errors.
• Scans behind login pages. 
• Provides 2 rescans to validate patches. 
• Delivers custimizable compliance-specific scans and reports. 
• Ensure zero false positives through vetted scans.

Limitations:

• Trial available at $7 for a week.

2. Rapid7

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: Capable of running 95+ attack types on your web app and cloud
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: CIS, ISO 27001, and PCI DSS
• Integrations: ServiceNow Security Operations, LogRhythm, ManageEngine, and more
• Support: AI-powered chatbot with human support 
• Price: Starting at $1.93/mo for 500 assets, per asset

As a comprehensive vulnerability management system, Rapid7 provides world-class application security, vulnerability management, and SIEM services with its’ Insight VM offering capabilities such as advanced remediation, tracking, and reporting.

Moreover, its penetration testing platform integrates with 40+ technologies to deliver smoother workflows and improve speed of patching and remediation.

Pros:

• Simple and easy-to-navigate interface.
• Compiles a single platform for the detection and management of vulnerabilities.

Limitations:

• Customer support can be improved. 
• Removal of scanned devices must be done manually. 

3. Tenable Nessus

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: Continuous penetration testing for 65K+ vulnerabilities
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: HIPAA, ISO, NIST, and PCI-DSS
• Integrations:  IBM Security, Splunk, GitHub, and GitLab
• Support: AI-powered chatbot with dedicated human support
• Price: Starting at $4,236/yr

As a leading web application vulnerability management system, Nessus, under the Tenable umbrella, facilitates point-in-time analysis of security systems. Focused on automated scanning, it offers a better view of your cloud infrastructure and web applications with detailed reporting capabilities.

Moreover, its continuous monitoring functionalities, enhanced by a comprehensive analysis of exposure management, extensive integrations, and community support, help improve your security posture.

Pros:

• Simplifies alert management 
• Designed to support scaling organizations. 

Limitations:

• Advanced support is only available upon additional payment. 
• Takes time to complete scans. 

4. Breachlock

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: Pentest for web applications, networks, APIs, and cloud. 
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: SOC 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA, NIST, and ISO 27001
• Integrations: Jira, Slack, and Trello
• Support: AI-powered chatbot with dedicated human support
• Price: Available on quote

As another PTaaS platform, Breachloack delivers a judicious mix of AI-augmented penetration tests and automated scans to facilitate vulnerability management. It continuously monitors your infra for vulnerabilities and hidden assets, including those in shadow IT and the dark web.

Its evidenced-based reporting helps smoothen the remediation process, while the standardized framework helps meet industrial standards and benchmarks.

Pros:

• Provides access to a built-in NIST policy.
• Offers a scalable architecture.

Limitations:

• Remediation services have a lot of scope for improvement.
• Needs more integrations like Calico.

5. Intruder

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: Websites, servers, and cloud to detect 65000+ vulnerabilities
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: SOC2, and ISO 27001
• Integrations: GitHub & JIRA
• Support: AI-powered chatbot with human support
• Price: Starts at $1958/ year

Known for integrating automated penetration testing, continuous monitoring, and proactive threat response under one platform, Intruder is one of the mature vulnerability management systems in the market.

Its real-time monitoring, coupled with monthly security assessment functionality and actionable reports, helps keep your data secure across assets while the seamless integrations facilitate remediation.

Pros:

• Easy to deploy and manage alerts.
• Conducts hourly checks for new IP addresses and hostnames. 

Limitations:

• The pricing is a bit steep 
• Lacks zero false positive assurance.

6. Arctic Wolf

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: Vulnerability management and response solution for network and cloud
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and ISO
• Integrations: Azure IaaS, Microsoft, AWS, and Okta
• Support: AI-powered chatbot with human support
• Price: Available on quote

As a cloud-based vulnerability management platform, Arctic Wolf provides 24/7 managed detection and response solutions with constant monitoring capabilities.

With tailored risk assessments, real-time reporting, and personalized support, Arctic Wolf helps provide a proactive and comprehensive approach to vulnerability management to reduce cyber risk exposure.

Pros:

• Helps avoid alert fatigue. 
• A cost-efficient solution to having an in-house SOC.

Limitations:

• Integrations can be improved.

7. Alert Logic

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: Scans for 99K+ vulnerabilities in networks
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: HIPAA, NIST, and PCI-DSS
• Integrations: Microsoft, AWS, JIRA, Crowdstrike and more
• Support: AI-powered chatbot 
• Price: Available on quote

AlertLogic is a popular SOC-as-a-service and vulnerability management provider that provides managed network threat detection and response services. 

They offer asset discovery, threat monitoring, incident validation, remediation, and log management services to secure your data and help maintain compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and ISO 27001.

Pros:

• Precise and timely notifications
• Easy-to-navigate dashboards.

Limitations:

• Could have better end-point protection. 

8. Orca Security

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: 
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: 150+ frameworks for multi-cloud environments
• Integrations: JIRA, Okta, Slack, and more
• Support: AI-powered chatbot 
• Price: Available on quote

Known for its leading vulnerability management system for cloud infrastructures like AWS, Azure, and Google Platform, Orca Security provides penetration testing and actionable data that is easily accessible to the right teams.

Moreover, its features like data encryption, antivirus, potential intrusion, and threat detection help strengthen your security posture.

Pros:

• Delivers discovery and modeling of interrelationships between multi-cloud assets
• Offers support for multi-cloud enterprise

Limitations:

• Known to face some issues with user authentication.

9. Symantec

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: 
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: ISO, SOC, PCI-DSS, and GDPR
• Integrations: JIRA, GitHub, GitLab, and more
• Support: AI-powered chatbot with dedicated human support
• Price: Available on quote

Part of the Broadcom Umbrella, Symantec is a cloud penetration testing vulnerability management system that delivers complete visibility and facilitates monitoring for unusual activities in the cloud.

The platform also offers threat management, sensitive data protection, and severity-based ranking to facilitate the discovery of OS and application-based vulnerabilities.

Pros:

• Offers endpoint threat detection. 
• Deliver monthly proactive threat hunts.

Limitations:

• May not be feasible for small to medium-sized companies. 
• Integration possibilities can be improved, especially for cloud environments.

10. SecureWorks

Key Features:

• Scanner Capacity: Helps detect 14K+ 
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: PCI-DSS, HIPAA
• Integrations: AWS, zScaler, Slack and JIRA
• Support: Dedicated human support
• Price: Available on quote

As a vulnerability management tool, SecureWorks pentesting, application security testing, malware detection, and risk assessments for information assets, networks, and systems. 

Capable of performing nearly 250 billion cyber programs that facilitate threat detection and mitigation, provides contextual analysis for prioritizing vulnerabilities based on over 40 internal and external risk factors.

Pros

• Easy to align the security environment with industry standards like NIST and ISO.
• Active communications can be improved.

Limitations

• Too expensive for SMEs.
• There’s a delay between suspicious activity and the alert raised.

Final Thoughts

To conclude, you can effectively mitigate risks, enhance your security posture, and protect your business from costly breaches by carefully evaluating the features and capabilities of different vulnerability management systems, such as asset discovery, risk prioritization, and reporting. 

Moreover, the ideal vulnerability management software can empower you to proactively identify and address vulnerabilities, prioritize remediation efforts, and demonstrate compliance with industry regulations. Moreover, a good VMS tool like Astra Security or Rapid7 is indispensable to your cybersecurity framework.

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