Security & Endpoint Protection Suppliers

Tenable

Vulnerability management, Nessus and exposure management for enterprise security

Tenable is the market leader in vulnerability management and exposure management. Its best-known product is Nessus — one of the most widely used vulnerability scanners in the world — along with the enterprise platforms Tenable Vulnerability Management (formerly Tenable.io), Tenable Security Center, and the overarching Tenable One. For organisations with NIS2, DORA, or ISO 27001 obligations, a toolset like Tenable has become almost standard. The licensing model is based on the number of assets (IP addresses, cloud resources, identities). This sounds simple but the counting is notoriously tricky: IoT devices, container instances, and ephemeral cloud workloads can quickly cause the asset count to rise. Organisations that don’t actively manage their asset inventory often see their Tenable bill increase year after year without the security level improving.

Barracuda

Email security, firewalls, SASE and backup for mid-market and enterprise

Barracuda Networks is a broad security provider offering products for email security (Email Protection), network security (CloudGen Firewall, SecureEdge SASE), application security (WAF-as-a-Service) and data protection (Backup). Barracuda is particularly strong in the mid-market and is sold through a partner model. Since the acquisition by KKR in 2022, the product range has been rapidly shifted towards consolidated subscription suites. The licensing model is mostly per user (email, SASE) or per appliance (firewall, WAF). Over recent years, Barracuda has steadily increased prices and actively promoted multi-year contracts. Customers who fail to renegotiate in time therefore consistently face price increases of 10-20% upon renewal.

Palo Alto Networks

Next-gen firewall, SASE and cloud security platform

Palo Alto Networks is one of the leading players in enterprise cybersecurity. The portfolio includes next-generation firewalls (NGFW), the Prisma SASE platform, endpoint protection via Cortex XDR, and a wide range of cloud security services. Palo Alto has aggressively acquired companies in recent years and pushed customers towards an integrated platform model. The licensing structure is complex: hardware appliances are combined with software subscriptions and cloud services, each with its own durations and renewal dates. This makes oversight and budgeting difficult without active contract management.