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Compare Nessus with industry vulnerability assessment solutions

Nessus® is the gold standard for vulnerability assessment. See how Nessus compares to OpenVAS®, Rapid7® Nexpose® and Greenbone.

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See why Nessus is trusted by tens of thousands of organizations worldwide.

Since our inception, we've collaborated with the security community to make Nessus the most accurate and comprehensive vulnerability assessment solution. Even after 20 years, our focus remains on community collaboration and product innovation. Compare Nessus with other popular tools to see how it measures up.

Learn more about Nessus
Nessus
Data as of July 2024
Tenable
Rapid7

Vulnerability assessment

CVE coverage
Tenable Nessus
Industry leading CVE coverage. Refer to https://www.tenable.com/plugins for more information
Not published.
Not published.
Not published.
EPSS scoring supported
Tenable Nessus
Yes
No
No
Yes
False-positive rate
Tenable Nessus
Industry's lowest false-positive rate – better than six-sigma accuracy1
Not published; customers report many false-positives
Not published; customers report many false-positives
Not published; customers report many false-positives
Pre-built audit scan templates
Tenable Nessus
Tenable published 1318 audits covering 1189 benchmarks Visit our Audits page for more details
Not available
Not available
Total number of benchmarks is not published, Nexpose provides templates for most common frameworks
Live results
Tenable Nessus
Live results identifies vulnerabilities using existing scan data with new plugin updates, for real-time visibility
Not available
Yes
Not available
Vulnerability grouping
Tenable Nessus
Grouped View presents similar vulnerabilities in a single thread for ease of management
Not available
Not available
Not available
Web application scanning
Tenable Nessus
Yes
Not available
Not available
Basic features 2
IaC (Infrastructure as Code) policy violation scanning
Tenable Nessus
Yes
Not available
Not available
Not available
Continuous subdomain discovery scanning (Attack Surface Discovery)*
Tenable Nessus
Yes
Not available
Not available
Not available

Security configuration assessment/audit (SCA)

Pre-built compliance and configuration assessment templates
Tenable Nessus
1100+ compliance and configuration templates (CIS, DISA STIG, HIPAA, PCI DSS, USGCB, FDCC, and more) – at no extra cost
Very limited set of configuration templates included. No support DISA STIG, USGCB, or FDCC audits
Very limited set of configuration templates included. No support DISA STIG, USGCB, or FDCC audits
Total number is not published

Reporting and user interface

Flexible report creation
Tenable Nessus
Pre-built report templates simplify report creation. Reports can be tailored based on customized views by team or client
Limited report templates and filtering capabilities
Limited report templates and filtering capabilities
Pre-built report templates available. Custom templates can be created or imported
Report export formats
Tenable Nessus
HTML, CSV, PDF, Nessus XML, and Nessus DB
Support for common industry report formats
Support for common industry report formats
Support for common industry report formats
Branded reports
Tenable Nessus
Option to add personal branding (name/logo)
Manual CLI based steps available to add limited customizations
Manual CLI based steps available to add limited customizations
Option to add personal branding (name/logo)
Automatic email distribution of reports after scans finish
Tenable Nessus
Yes
Not available
Yes
Yes

Security research

Expert security research
Community driven
Community driven and technology partners supported
Rapid7 maintains a respected security research team

Platform support

Supported operating systems
Tenable Nessus

Tenable supports the following:

  • Amazon Linux 2023 & 2 (x86_64, AArch64)
  • CentOS Stream 9 (x86_64)
  • Debian 10 (i386), 10, 11, and 12 / Kali Linux 2020 (AMD64)
  • Fedora 38 and 39 (x86_64)
  • Raspberry Pi OS (ARMHF)
  • Red Hat ES 6 / Oracle Linux 6 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) (x86_64)
  • Red Hat ES 7 / CentOS 7 / Oracle Linux 7 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) (x86_64, AArch64)
  • Red Hat ES 8 / CentOS 8 / Oracle Linux 8 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) / Rocky Linux 8 (x86_64, AArch64)
  • Red Hat ES 9 / Oracle Linux 9 (including Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel) / Rocky Linux 9 / Alma Linux 9 (x86_64, AArch64)
  • FreeBSD 12 (AMD64)
  • SUSE Enterprise 12 and 15 SP1 and later (x86_64)
  • Ubuntu 14.04, 6.04, and 17.10 (i386)
  • Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04, 17.10, 18.04, 20.04, and 22.04 (AMD64)
  • Ubuntu 18.04 (AArch64, Graviton2)
Home application Products such as Ubuntu Linux, AVM Fritzbox, MSOffice, etc are supported
Enterprise Products such as MS Exchange, Palo Alto, Cisco, IOT/OT, etc are supported. See supported products feed
  • Ubuntu Linux 22.04 LTS , 20.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS
  • Oracle Linux 8, 7
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12
  • Alma Linux 9
  • Rocky Linux 9
  • Windows Server Desktop experience only. Core not supported.
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2022, 2019, 2016, 2012 R2
  • Microsoft Windows 8.1
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 9, 8, 7, 6
  • CentOS 7

Total cost of ownership (TCO)

Cost of acquiring, operating, and supporting product
Tenable Nessus
7-day free trial.
Full pricing here.
Extensive pre-built capabilities, automation, and vendor support minimize manual effort
Free to download.
Significant manual work required to deploy, operate, and self-support
Greenbone offers commercial distribution of OpenVas, pricing is not published
Greenbone offers 14 day trial but pricing is not published
Rapid7 offers 30 day trial but pricing is not published

Product viability

Product investment
Tenable Nessus
Tenable continues to invest in and innovate with Nessus. Link to release notes
Community-driven releases and bug fixes
Release history can be accessed here
Release history can be accessed here

Industry adoption

Paid customers
Tenable Nessus
44,000+3
Not published
Over 1000
110004
Cumulative downloads
Tenable Nessus
2+ million5
Nessus
Not published
50,000 installations claimed
Not published
#1 market share for application VA
Tenable Nessus
Yes6
No
No
No
1Approximately 0.32 defects per 1 million scans https://www.tenable.com/products/nessus.
2Nexpose feature list
3Source: https://www.tenable.com/about-tenable/about-us. Virtually all Tenable customers are using Nessus or a product built on Nessus technology.
4Source: https://www.rapid7.com/about/customers. Not all of Rapid7’s customers are using Nexpose (or InsightVM).
5Source: https://www.tenable.com/products/nessus.
6According to IDC WorldWide Device Vulnerability Management: https://www.tenable.com/blog/idc-ranks-tenable-no-1-in-worldwide-device-vulnerability-management-market-share-for-the-fifth.
*Applies to Nessus Expert.
Data as of July 2024
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