Nessus by Tenable is the world's most widely deployed vulnerability scanner, used by 30,000+ organizations globally. It scans networks, systems, and applications for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance violations. Nessus Essentials (free for 16 IPs) provides enterprise-grade scanning for small teams. Nessus Professional extends to unlimited IPs with advanced reporting, compliance checks (PCI DSS, HIPAA, CIS), and configuration auditing. The industry benchmark since 1998.
Nessus
Vulnerability assessment scanner
Best for: Security teams needing the industry-standard vulnerability scanner with compliance reporting
- Free plan
4.5/5 ratingEditorial score 85/100tenable.com
The editorial note
What to know about Nessus
Is it right for you?
Who Nessus suits
Choose it if
- Security teams needing the industry-standard vulnerability scanner with compliance reporting
Look elsewhere if
- Application-layer web vulnerability scanning (Burp Suite is better for that)
What you get
Key features
- Network scanning
- Compliance checks
- Configuration auditing
- Plugin library
- Reporting
- Scheduling
- API
Works with
Integrations6
The trade-off
Pros and cons
Pros
- Industry benchmark scanner
- Free tier (16 IPs)
- Compliance reports
- Large plugin library
- Trusted by 30K+ orgs
- Regular updates
Cons
- Expensive Professional tier
- Not for web app scanning
- Resource-intensive scans
Quick read
At a glance
- Category
- Cybersecurity & Privacy
- Pricing model
- Freemium
- Free plan
- Available
- Free trial
- Not listed
- Website
- tenable.com
The verdict
Our take on Nessus
Best industry-standard vulnerability scanner. Nessus has been the benchmark for network vulnerability scanning for 25 years — its free Essentials tier provides enterprise-quality scanning for small teams, and Professional is the default choice for compliance-driven organizations.
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