Greenbone OPENVAS BASIC vs Semperis Purple Knight: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Greenbone OPENVAS BASIC

Small and mid-market security teams with limited budgets will find real value in Greenbone OPENVAS BASIC because it covers the major vendor stacks (Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, Palo Alto) without forcing you into expensive multi-year contracts. The on-premises deployment model means no recurring SaaS fees, and LDAP/Radius integration handles authentication without extra tooling. Skip this if you need continuous monitoring with automated response; OPENVAS BASIC prioritizes the scan-and-report workflow over real-time anomaly detection, leaving the response half of your risk cycle understaffed.

Semperis Purple Knight

Identity and access teams responsible for Active Directory or Entra ID hygiene should start with Purple Knight because it scans 185+ misconfigurations and risky admin patterns that your existing tools are likely missing, then delivers prioritized fixes instead of just a list of problems. The free model means no budget negotiation to run periodic scans across AD, Entra ID, and Okta simultaneously, making it genuinely low friction for gap assessment. Skip this if you need continuous runtime detection of lateral movement or persistence techniques; Purple Knight is a periodic scanner, not a monitor.