Sheet 03 · Method
How We Score IT Asset Inventory Tools
Bottom line
Each tool gets a 0-100 editorial score on seven weighted criteria. The weighted total is computed from the published weights, and every score has a one-line reason. Sources are public vendor pages reviewed in September 2026; we did not test the products.
Last updated 13 October 2026
What are the seven criteria and their weights?
| Criterion | Weight | What we look for |
|---|---|---|
| Source coverage | 22% | How many asset classes and data sources the tool documents (laptops, servers, cloud workloads, SaaS apps, identities, OT/IoT, network devices), by its own discovery or by integrations. |
| Correlation and deduplication | 18% | Does it merge what several tools report about the same asset into one record, and resolve conflicts between them? |
| Data freshness | 12% | How quickly the inventory reflects change: continuous, event-driven or scheduled. |
| Query and reporting | 12% | Can a team ask coverage questions ("which laptops have no EDR agent") across all sources and report on them? |
| Remediation and write-back | 14% | Can the tool act on what it finds: tickets, workflows, pushing corrected data back into other systems? |
| Deployment effort | 12% | How much work before the inventory is useful. Higher score means less effort (agentless, trial available, fewer prerequisites). |
| Price transparency | 10% | Is there a published price a buyer can model before a sales call? |
Coverage and trust score (editorial assessment, 0-100). It measures how completely and reliably a tool can tell a security or IT team what assets exist, who owns them and what state they are in. It is not a measure of overall product quality: service management platforms and lifecycle tools score lower here because inventory accuracy is one part of what they do.
How is the total calculated?
Total = (coverage x 22 + correlation x 18 + freshness x 12 + query x 12 + remediation x 14 + deployment x 12 + price x 10) / 100. Totals are shown as whole numbers and sorted on the exact value. A tie on the shown value is displayed as a tie.
Axonius: (92x22 + 90x18 + 78x12 + 86x12 + 82x14 + 60x12 + 15x10) / 100 = 76.30, shown as 76.
Who leads each criterion?
| Criterion | Leader | Score | Axonius score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Source coverage | Axonius | 92 | 92 |
| Correlation and deduplication | Axonius | 90 | 90 |
| Data freshness | Armis | 88 | 78 |
| Query and reporting | JupiterOne | 88 | 86 |
| Remediation and write-back | Axonius | 82 | 82 |
| Deployment effort | runZero | 90 | 60 |
| Price transparency | JupiterOne | 92 | 15 |
Axonius leads 3 of 7 criteria (source coverage, correlation and remediation) and is beaten on freshness, query, deployment effort and price transparency.
Why these weights?
Coverage and correlation carry 40% together because they decide whether the inventory is complete and whether its records can be trusted. Remediation carries 14% because an inventory that cannot hand work to the team that fixes the gap leaves the gap open. Freshness, query and deployment effort carry 12% each. Price transparency carries 10%: it matters to buyers, and several vendors here do not publish prices.
What sources do we use?
Vendor product pages, documentation and pricing pages, fetched in September 2026. Each review lists the pages behind its facts. We do not use user review scores, vendor briefings or analyst reports as scoring inputs. Where a vendor does not publish a detail, we write Not published and score that criterion conservatively.
What are the limits of this ranking?
- Public sources only. We did not run the products, and a feature that exists but is not documented is scored as if it were missing.
- No vendor interviews. Vendors did not review scores before publication.
- Scores are editorial judgement against the rubric, not measurements.
- Vendor pages change. Everything here was last reviewed in September 2026 and will be re-checked each quarter.
Which tools work alongside the ranking?
Works alongside, not scored
ServiceNow CMDB: the system of record the ranked tools feed. Axonius reads ServiceNow CMDB tables and can create, update or remove ServiceNow assets.
Works alongside: ServiceNow CMDBWhich vendors did we review but not score?
We score a vendor only when its public pages document every one of the seven criteria. These four did not, on the pages we read, so they are listed with what is published and no score.
SevCo Security: On our review list for the next update. We have not read its public product pages yet, so no facts are shown.
Tenable One (Tenable): An exposure management platform. Tenable Attack Surface Management, part of Tenable One, maps external assets from a map of more than 5 billion assets with 200+ metadata fields; Tenable One Connectors bring third-party data into the platform. Tenable One Vulnerability Management is published at $3,700 for one year for up to 250 assets; the Tenable One platform is demo only. Not scored: data freshness and deployment effort for asset inventory are not described on the pages we read.
Source: tenable.com/products/tenable-one, read 27 September 2026 · Reviewed Sep 2026
Source: tenable.com/products/attack-surface-management, read 27 September 2026 · Reviewed Sep 2026
Source: tenable.com/buy, read 27 September 2026 · Reviewed Sep 2026
Source: tenable.com/try, read 11 October 2026 · Reviewed Sep 2026
Rapid7 Surface Command (Rapid7): The entry package of the Rapid7 Command platform, described as asset discovery and unified inventory (CAASM) including devices, software, identities and controls, internal and external attack surface visibility, an asset graph with blast radius views, and a remediation hub. Vulnerability scanning sits in the Exposure Command tiers above it. Pricing basis published (asset types and use cases in scope), no amounts. Not scored: data freshness and deployment effort are not described on the pages we read.
Source: rapid7.com/products/command/pricing, read 11 October 2026 · Reviewed Sep 2026
Qualys CSAM (Qualys): Cybersecurity Asset Management, which uses the Qualys agent, also as a passive sensor, and syncs with ServiceNow and BMC ITSM tools; a free trial is offered, no price is published. Not scored: which third-party sources it correlates, its query depth and its data freshness are not described on the page we read.
Source: qualys.com/apps/cybersecurity-asset-management, read 11 October 2026 · Reviewed Sep 2026