# Nessus Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is Nessus the right Vulnerability Management solution for you? Explore 93 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/130577/Nessus/reviews --- Nessus 4.7 (93) [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 January 14th, 2026 # Reviews of Nessus Ease of use 4.6 Customer Service 4.3 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews RB Robert B ITOFinancial Services, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Nessus provides very valuable insight into network vulnerabilities and the remediation required to address the vulnerabilities.“ June 7, 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 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 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 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 WI Wassim I Associate ProfessorComputer Networking, 501 - 1,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Nessus is very accurate but sometimes, especially with latest versions of Ubuntu, many false positives are noticed.“ July 29, 2023 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 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 93 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 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 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 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 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 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 AK Alex K. Systems Engineer Financial Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Our auditors love Nessus Professional" December 19, 2024 5.0 Pros We love the overall ease of use and the amount of details that scans have along with the findings for quick remediation. Our auditors love the reporting. Cons Sometimes there are limitations in the scan exclusions. We would also like to see integrations with ticketing systems. Review Source RB Robert B. ITO Financial Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great product. Nessus is an industry leader for a reason. " June 7, 2024 5.0 Pros Nessus provides very valuable insight into network vulnerabilities and the remediation required to address the vulnerabilities. Nessus is and has been an industry leader for along time and is tried, tested, and true. Very good program that helps keep industries safe. Cons Nessus can be cost prohibitive and difficult to initially setup. Having employees with good technical knowledge will be important if implementing Nessus software, otherwise, outsourcing is a good option as well. Review Source MW Matthew W. AM Automotive Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Nessus Review" June 6, 2024 5.0 Pros I like the ability to scan everything on the network and get a report on vulnerabilities. Cons Sometimes the vulnerability scan is a little too picky. 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 Cyber Security Engineer Utilities Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Nessus Vulnerability Scanner" April 12, 2021 5.0 Pros I used Nessus everyday and the UI is very friendly and easy to use. Cons It took Tenable after placing the order and while to get the license key. It took abit of back and forth to get an admin account but once created it was easy to use and set up team members Review Source CC Christopher C. IT Specialist Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Easy to Use Vulnerability Scanner" September 6, 2017 5.0 Good canned reports and dashboards, which show where your critical risks are. Ability to export date into CSV or Excel format was welcome and made manipulating data easier. Pros What I like most about Nessus is that they have many plugins available for the various vulnerabilities that are out there. The ability to scan static and dynamic asset lists is great. The ability to schedule recurring scan jobs is helpful and aids in the scanning of systems. Integration with ticketing systems such as ServiceNow is also great. Cons It would be nice if their website had the published or revised date of their plugins. Resolving issues related to their Nessus Agents would also be nice. The UI could be improved so that queries didn't take so long. It would be nice if there was an easy way to purge old data associated with particular IPs. Review Source AM ANILU M. SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "vulnerability scanning tools in systems, networks and applications" February 2, 2024 5.0 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 Pros Its interface is intuitive and offers various scanning options for the various areas to be analyzed, such as networks, web systems or applications. Cons Its price can be considered high, compared to other free or lower cost tools. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Assistant Manager - IT Network and Operations Banking Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Nessus - Stay compliant" July 12, 2021 4.0 When it comes to compliance, Nessus really plays major roll. Nessus ensures that your network is accurately assessed. Pros Nessus gives you scan presets that are designed for each compliance body such as PCI, HIPAA, NIST etc. Administrators can easily select the patch level and run the vulnerability assessments. And even you can customize it as per your requirement too. Cons Nessus scanner becomes bit laggy when it comes to scanning of nodes with large data sets and applications. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Associate Consultant - Cyber Security Services Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Run and Gun!" June 30, 2019 5.0 Pros Nessus allows you to perform both authenticated and unauthenticated scans for a list of hosts within your network to check for potential vulnerabilities and missing patches, out dated software etc. The post presentation so nicely done and all referrals are there to plan out the remediation process if there are any. Cons You have to have a powerful rig to get the most out of this software since it's a bit CPU hungry. It'll get days to run a scan for 100 hosts if you have low end system. Review Source LG Leonid G. CISO Banking Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Nessus - best vulnerability manager" April 2, 2021 5.0 We use Nessus and we are very satistied. Pros The price. Dashboards. Very fast scans and very detailed reports. Cons User group management can be more efficient. Alternatives considered [IBM Security QRadar](https://www.capterra.com/p/179511/IBM-QRadar-SIEM/)[Acunetix](https://www.capterra.com/p/171379/Acunetix/) Reason for choosing Nessus The price and the functionalities. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer IT Lead Aviation & Aerospace Used the software for: I used a free trial ### "Bang for your buck!" November 26, 2019 5.0 Overall, we have been very pleased with the trial. The software has helped us identify and re-mediate vulnerabilities in our environment and fills a gap in our security requirements. Pros We are currently trying out Tenable.io and using the Nessus scanner to run local vulnerability scans and remediation at our company. I like the ease of setup and use of the Nessus scanner and the detailed reporting that is available with Tenable.io (cloud version). Cons The Nessus scanner does utilize a lot of system resources and the scan (less than 50 nodes) can take up to 2 days to complete. It would be nice if the scan was faster. Reason for choosing Nessus We had a conference call with the BreachLock CEO and felt we were brushed to the side due to the size of our company and the timing of our purchase. We went with Nessus instead. 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 Fábio S. Senior Software Security Analyst Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Good automated tool, but lots of false positives" February 17, 2023 5.0 Pros Nessus is the state of the art on automating vulnerability scans for networks and infrastructure. It has lots of customization options and can be deployed locally to make an active scan on the internal infra. or through the cloud. Cons It can be expensive to keep it running for smaller business. Also, many false positives can be encountered and then depends on the analyst to interpret and classify each vulnerability along with a more appropriate severity. Review Source JV Joevanne V. Security Engineer Financial Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Great Vulnerability Management Solution" February 16, 2017 5.0 Tenable offers great vulnerability management products and Security Center is very easy to use. Great reporting capabilities and an overall great product. Pros Ease of use Reporting Cons Lacking in application security Review Source JZ Jason Z. Applications Administrator Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Scanning and reporting by setting a schedule" March 7, 2018 5.0 Pros We have an amazing scanning functionality with NESSUS and it's scheduled so all I have to do is look at the report then can use that to report to the committees Cons It can be troublesome to setup the very first time but when it is set up it is a breeze to use Review Source Similar Products Featured ## Related categories [Vulnerability Scanner](https://www.capterra.com/vulnerability-scanner-software/)[Vulnerability Management](https://www.capterra.com/vulnerability-management-software/)[Network Security](https://www.capterra.com/network-security-software/) ## 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.