--- title: "Nessus Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra" description: "Is Nessus the right Vulnerability Management solution for you? Explore 94 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice." source_url: "https://www.capterra.com/p/130577/Nessus/reviews/" page_type: "reviews" language: "en" --- Nessus 4.7 (94) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/130577/Nessus/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated August 20th, 2026 # Reviews of Nessus Ease of use 4.6 Customer Service 4.3 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews AM ANILU M SOFTWARE DEVELOPERComputer Software, Self-employedUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “It has been used in the vulnerability analysis stage of the developed systems, it provides various analysis options, this tool accompanied by trained security personnel results in a good cybersecurity analysis“ February 2, 2024 KC Kevin C IT InternWarehousing, 201 - 500 employeesUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “The only downsides of Nessus that I have experienced are that sometimes it gets false positives, but not very often, and that the UI of the website can be finicky sometimes.“ December 12, 2024 KR Kiran R Vulnerability AssessorComputer & Network Security, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “We even have multiple tenable products and it's integration with tenable.io ecosystem is great.“ February 3, 2025 RB Robert B ITOFinancial Services, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Nessus can be cost prohibitive and difficult to initially setup.“ June 7, 2024 AM ANILU M SOFTWARE DEVELOPERComputer Software, Self-employedUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “Its interface is intuitive and offers various scanning options for the various areas to be analyzed, such as networks, web systems or applications.“ February 2, 2024 Carol L Data analyst Chemicals, 10,001+ employeesUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “It is not user friendly in terms of costs since it is expensive if you want to access more features through the paid versions.“ October 26, 2022 AK Alex K Systems EngineerFinancial Services, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “We love the overall ease of use and the amount of details that scans have along with the findings for quick remediation.“ December 19, 2024 MR Manish R Project ManagerMechanical or Industrial Engineering, 10,001+ employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “vulnerability management is not included in nessus pro, only io or sc has it“ March 7, 2023 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 94 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Nguyen H. System Engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The quality is OK but they should support more API call to do automation" November 15, 2019 4.0 Simple, the quality of report also good. The price is reasonable for Pro version. Pros Simple interface, even end-user can use it. Easy to install. Cons Everything is good, but since they stop nessus manager, I can not find the way to do automation. Alternatives considered [InsightVM](https://www.capterra.com/p/169723/InsightVM/) Reason for choosing Nessus Price is cheapter, the quality is Good enough. Switched from [InsightVM](https://www.capterra.com/p/169723/InsightVM/) Because the price Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Manager Banking Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Nessus Vulnarability Scanning Tool" June 22, 2021 5.0 Nessus is #1 Vulnerability scanning tool which I ever seen and also Nessus tool has given fullest support to get PCIDSS certificate to our organization. I strongly commanding others to protect there organization with Nessus tool. Pros Administrator can simply use predefined policy and easy to apply related product as a template. Also the reporting is 99.99% accuracy and easy to understand and easy to find a solutions. Cons When we define a bulk scan, Nessus tool is getting more Computer/Server resources. Reason for choosing Nessus While compare with reviews and others recommendations. Review Source BS Ben S. Infrastructure Architect Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "If you are not already using Nessus as a core product for security scanning, you should start today. " August 11, 2026 5.0 We have been using Nessus for years, and run full scans on a regular basis. Issues are resolved as soon as possible after detection and ones that cannot be resolved are documented and reported to management. Pros Nessus is an excellent vulnerability assessment tool that can be purchased at very low cost and provides tremendous value and protection to an organization. Their support is excellent, licensing is simple, and the product is always up to date with scanning for zero-day issues. Cons The only thing I wish Nessus would improve upon would be the ability to add devices into a custom group, and then be able to select that group for different scans and reports. Review Source JB Jeremy B. Offensive Security Consultant Computer & Network Security Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Decent product with awful price tag" May 8, 2025 3.0 Solid product, minus reporting. But massively overpriced and undermaintained. Pros good for discovery, fingerprinting, and finding CVEs for systems/software Cons performance is pretty poor, licensing experience is poor, does not normalize scope data, does not always show its work in scan output, lots of typos in finding text, filtering does not work as well as one would hope Review Source AJ Abhijeet J. Lead Consultant Computer & Network Security Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "A Must have for MSSP" September 5, 2024 4.0 Pros A Professional tool that gives stellar results Cons Price can be a bit steep for small businesses Alternatives considered [Nexpose](https://www.capterra.com/p/238841/Nexpose/) Reason for choosing Nessus As an MSSP, we need to give results to the customer and keep them safe from all vulnerabilities. We cannot choose an inferior product and negotiate with results. Switched from [Pentest-Tools.com](https://www.capterra.com/p/211194/Pentest-Tools-com/) Pentest-tools was lower on the price side but did not find any good vulnerabilities like Nessus did. Review Source WI Wassim I. Associate Professor Computer Networking Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Nessus: Vulnerability Scanner with Appealing Reporting Capabilities" July 29, 2023 4.0 Nessus is a must for network security testing and vulnerability analysis. Together with Nmap, Nessus gives a much better penetration testing and vulnerability analysis of networks and virtualized cloud infrastructures. Pros I used Nessus with nmap for testing the vulnerability of virtualized networks in controlled environments. The main motivation behind the selection of Nessus is to have a user-friendly vulnerability report with categorized network exploits and OS weaknesses. Nessus provides accurate results (though some false positives are noticed in hardened Linux environments). The advanced reporting capabilities in Nessus makes the vulnerability results easily exported and documented to relational databases. Moreover, the various Nessus reports can be compared after hardening the OS with different security configurations. Cons Nessus is very accurate but sometimes, especially with latest versions of Ubuntu, many false positives are noticed. Still Nessus results are considered highly informative and the false positives can be autonomously filtered to provide more accurate vulnerability analysis and reporting. Alternatives considered [Intruder](https://www.capterra.com/p/161379/Intruder/) Reason for choosing Nessus advanced reporting. Accurate vulnerability analysis Review Source KH Kevin H. CISO Telecommunications Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Nessus Professional Gets The Job Done" August 25, 2020 5.0 This product does a great job of informing your IT and security groups on what may be vulnerable in your environment. Especially if your organization is looking to begin a program, start small and use this service to build up your processes and program before sinking large amounts of money into other services or products. Pros Nessus is still the industry leader in this arena, and the ability for the product to identify vulnerabilities accurately is still the high water mark to beat. You can be up and running in just a few minutes, and the ability to have recurring scans is a great way for this product to help you with your security program. The "Plugin Output" fields help greatly when trying to determine if tests are a false positive, and lends additional credence to your system administrators when you can show them exactly \*why\* something has been detected as a vulnerability. Cons There are no ways to track vulnerabilities or your efforts to monitor them over time; this truly is just a point-in-time view of your environment unless you upgrade to a much more expensive product. Alternatives considered [InsightVM](https://www.capterra.com/p/169723/InsightVM/) Reason for choosing Nessus The cost was a no-brainer; by paying one low fee instead of a per-IP address model we can ensure that there are no hidden surprises and that we have enough money to address other security projects at our organization. Review Source GR Geoffrey R. Director of Information Technology and Security Law Practice Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Nessus for vulnerability scanning" July 17, 2019 5.0 After our first major client security audit, we implemented Nessus to run weekly internal and external vulnerability scans. Not only does this help satisfy our client demands, but it helps us find vulnerabilities in our systems and helps us find patches and solutions to the vulnerabilities. Pros Easy to set up, use and report on. We started using this application after our first major client security audit a few years ago. It's a been great tool. Cons Not much to dislike with Nessus. Maybe some better reports, and the cost could always be better, although it's not bad. Alternatives considered [Netwrix Auditor](https://www.capterra.com/p/164872/Netwrix-Auditor/) Reason for choosing Nessus It was what several security companies use and it was recommended by the security expert we hired to perform a risk assessment of our network. Review Source JA Josh A. CEO Retail Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "We use and we like it" May 23, 2019 5.0 We implemented Nessus very easy, with the support from the vendor. Good price and very good solution. Pros We use Nessus because is very good tool to manage you vulnerabilities. Fast scan and easy to make reports and to monitor vulnerabilities. Easy to adjust the profile scan, easy to add scan targets. Good price and a lot of features. Cons We did not find any problems with the Nessus vulnerability management. Alternatives considered [Acunetix](https://www.capterra.com/p/171379/Acunetix/) Reason for choosing Nessus The features. Easy installation. Mature tool. Very good support from the vendor. Review Source KR Kiran R. Vulnerability Assessor Computer & Network Security Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Tenable Nessus: Excellent tool for security testing" February 3, 2025 5.0 This is one of the best tool I've used, very competent and shows great results. Accuracy of scans are good and detects most vulnerabilities like SQL injection, XSS, and other misconfigurations. Automated scans are very friendly to setup and compares scope to OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities. Overall performance is good and also doesn't overload website. We even have multiple tenable products and it's integration with tenable.io ecosystem is great. Pros API support for automation and integration into CI/CD pipelines. Great scanning capabilities with form based and token based authentication. Reporting of results with CVSS scoring are accurate and remediation fixes are provided by this tool itself Cons Handling of dynamic applications with complex authentication needs improvement. Scan timings takes more than ETA Review Source KC Kevin C. IT Intern Warehousing Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Great Software to Detect Vulnerabilities" December 12, 2024 5.0 Nessus has been a great tool for the company I work at. Deploying it is just a matter of installing it, and putting in the right information in the installation, which can be automated. Once it's installed, it just works. It detects every known vulnerability there is. Pros Vulnerability scanning in Nessus is very accurate, it rarely gets anything wrong. It is also easy to deploy. Cons The only downsides of Nessus that I have experienced are that sometimes it gets false positives, but not very often, and that the UI of the website can be finicky sometimes. Review Source VA Vishvam A. Cyber security Computer & Network Security Used the software for: I used a free trial ### "Nessus for buisness " January 12, 2023 5.0 The vulnerability assessment and the scanning helps our buisness to grow much faster than the manual approch which also has the chances of human errors Pros The way thet the nessus scanner scans the web applications and the range of networks effectively and provides the analysis of the vulnerability present with the CVE codes and the ways to mitigate the vulnerability with the proper documentation report for the same which builds the trust on the nessus software and this capabilities are the main reason we recommend nessus scanner to each and every security teams Cons The nessus comes with the best available functionality and it is preferable over other tools but it also comes with the huge cost that is very high compared to other scanners Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Ingenierio de Implementacion Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "One of the best vulnerability scanners" January 8, 2019 5.0 Nessus has allowed us in the company to develop a timely remediation system, since with the results of the scanners our clients can manage the remediation in a more timely manner without needing to apply more invasive policies on the client. Additionally it has helped us that the scans can be done in a short period of time in comparison to others in the market and in this way improve our service. Pros This product is one of the best network scanners on the market. After properly installing the server with the scanner in the network and placing the credentials of the administrator, the system works perfectly. Vulnerability scanning and compliance scanning are executed properly, all the standards included in Nessus are very useful. Cons The vulnerability scanner is not totally accurate in some situations and some results must be checked to verify the vulnerability. Therefore, it is possible that there are false positives. Many times the supplements are not updated in a timely manner and this hurts even more with the false positives generated. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Architekt rozwi¿za¿ IT - Departament Rozwoju Infrastruktury Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Most comprehensive tool for security and compliance assesments" March 21, 2019 5.0 Best money/capabilities balance. Pros Tenable products dictates market standard for securty assesment. Nessus Profesional is part of that family. It has simillar capabilities like Tenable.io but can be run inside your datacenter as a stand alone solution. It's easy to configure, reliable and what's most importand it will give you a hint how to solve every voulnerability detected inside your infrastructure. Cons It misses some interesting predefined reports and usefull configuration options comparing to Tenable.io. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Technical Manager Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Nessus An Excellent Tool For The Vulnerability Management Process Of Any Company." January 14, 2019 5.0 Nessus it’s an excellent tool for the vulnerability management process of any company. Its super easy to use and implement on any network, and the tenable university and the community it’s a plus that make it even easier. There are many way how to export the result of any scan, but the best are in HTML and PDF, because are easy to understand and explain to any person. I really like it and going to continue using it Pros That it was really easy to implement and use Cons The reports are very basic and need to improve. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Chief Information Security Officer Security and Investigations Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great audit tool" August 27, 2018 5.0 After comparing it with other tools, in relation to quality / price it is a great tool beating its competitors in price Pros A very low false positive rate and a very intuitive interface Cons It would be desirable to make comparisons possible between different audits over time Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Technical Support Engineer Computer & Network Security Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Great product and easy to set up and use." March 7, 2018 4.0 Pros It did what it was advertised to do and did it well. The updates to the plugins were done regularly and it found everything out there that was a vulnerability Cons Lacked reporting module that helped show more of the picture for non technical people and pretty graphs. To get those you needed to move to Tenable.io or SecurityCenter. Review Source MR Manish R. Project Manager Mechanical or Industrial Engineering Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Excllent VA tool" March 7, 2023 5.0 its very nice and scans all vulnerabilities Pros vulnerability scans and classification is nice with poc Cons vulnerability management is not included in nessus pro, only io or sc has it Reason for choosing Nessus ease of use Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Manager, Information Security Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "THE vulnerability scanning software to beat" April 5, 2019 5.0 Pros Nessus is the gold standard of vulnerability scanning. A robust solution, highly customizable for every organization with cloud, on prem and client install options. Cons Without the local client or group policy that shuts off wifi when your on wired you may get hit with 2 licenses per device because it sees both the wireless and wired instance. Something to know going into it if you are buying. Review Source DL Derek L. Network Security Engineer Retail Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Its Great!" May 24, 2022 5.0 Pros Easy to use, and seems to find vuln's on more things than other scanners. Also seems to be updated more frequently. Cons I wish there was a way to combine data from multiple scanners into one report or view. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Network and System Administrator Education Management Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Vulnerability scanning at its finest" July 23, 2019 5.0 Very happy we purchased and implemented this software. It allows you to be proactive in locating vulnerabilities on the network and patching them before something bad happens. Well worth the cost. Pros Ease of use and simplicity. Rarely have had to reference online documentation. They make it very easy to figure out and use right away. For more specific sets of scans or devices, the documentation is helpful. There is also a very active community on their forums. Reporting is very informative, and scheduling makes it so you don't have to interact much after everything is all set. Cons Sometimes there are some false positives that take time to realize. Also seems to think many of the things they mark as medium risk are low risk. This depends on your situation and network, but for me most of the medium risks can be disregarded. Review Source Edwin T. Operations Engineer Computer & Network Security Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "The most perceptive Vulnerability Scanning Software" October 10, 2018 4.0 Use Used to perform vulnerability scanning from small networks to applications of critical use, which need to be kept safe by high confidentiality Pros It is easy to use very intuitive, completely modular, mature and highly scalable from small networks to operational networks critical for security Cons The License schema need be modular according to the user's need. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer IT Security Auditor Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Best tool for vulnerability scanning" November 13, 2018 4.0 Overall very helpful to understand your network security posture. Value for money at enterprise level. Pros Very handy, powerful and easy to use software for vulnerability scanning. This can be also utilize for web application scanning and system configuration review. One can schedule the scanning and get the report. It gives standard and custom reports which are helpful for presentation purpose. Nessus scanning reports suggest the required patch for their respective vulnerabilities. To get the best possible result plugins should be up to date with latest release. Cons Report doesn't show in graphical format. It doesn't scan system with 2FA enabled. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer QA Engineer Internet Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Great vulnerability audit tool" September 22, 2018 4.0 Pros Probably the best vulnerability scanner out there. There are plugins for every vulnerability, and it can scan either credentialed or uncredentialed. It is very easy to use, and generates really good reports and provides good feedback. Cons Some things on the website are rather slow, and there could be better flexibility to manage older data, like from hosts that are no longer in service. Review Source KMC Kevin Matthe C. Doctoral Student Research Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Decent general-purpose scanner" March 3, 2021 4.0 Nessus is my first local and network scanner. So far it's doing a pretty decent job! Pros For threats that are generally manageable and can easily be detected, Nessus is the to go-to scanner of choice Cons For novice administrator, more especially for those with less computer savviness, the configuration of this is very challenging Review Source Similar Products Featured ## Send me user reviews about this product ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox.