NMAP vs Carson & SAINT ASV: 2026 Comparison
NMAP is a free security scanning tool. Carson & SAINT ASV is a commercial security scanning tool by Carson & SAINT. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best security scanning fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, company size fit, deployment model, here is our conclusion:
Security teams with flat or segmented networks who need to inventory what's actually running will find Nmap indispensable; it discovers hosts and open ports faster than most paid alternatives and costs nothing. The tool has been the de facto standard for 25 years and appears in virtually every major penetration test and compliance audit. Skip Nmap if your environment is heavily cloud-native or you need continuous asset tracking across dynamic infrastructure; it's a point-in-time scanner, not a monitoring platform, and manual rescans don't scale past a few hundred endpoints.
Mid-market and enterprise teams with PCI DSS compliance obligations should pick Carson & SAINT ASV to eliminate the overhead of managing quarterly scan vendors. The tool is PCI DSS-certified as an Approved Scanning Vendor, handles unlimited rescans with built-in dispute assistance, and maps directly to NIST ID.RA and PR.PS requirements through continuous monitoring and vulnerability assessment. Skip this if your primary concern is vulnerability management across non-payment systems; Carson & SAINT ASV is compliance-first tooling, not a replacement for a broader vulnerability scanner.
