Acunetix vs Tenable Nessus comparison

Invicti and Tenable are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Invicti is ranked #28 with an average rating of 7.9, while Tenable is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5. Invicti holds a 1.1% mindshare in VM, compared to Tenable’s 5.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Invicti users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Tenable users who would recommend it.

Acunetix

Read 36 Acunetix reviews

6,676 Views
1,669 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Tenable Nessus

Read 88 Tenable Nessus reviews

9,827 Views
8,943 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Acunetix

Tenable Nessus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Acunetix and Tenable Nessus are prominent in the vulnerability scanning solutions market. Acunetix stands out for its in-depth analysis features, whereas Tenable Nessus captures a broader range of vulnerabilities with competitive pricing and customer support.

Features: Acunetix offers scheduling scans, an Interactive Application Security Testing module for deep analysis, and a web-based interface with comprehensive reporting for compliance standards. Tenable Nessus provides extensive vulnerability detection across different environments, predictive vulnerability prioritization, and a user-friendly interface.

Room for Improvement: Acunetix needs better false positive management, enhanced integration capabilities, and improved support for mobile platforms. Tenable Nessus could enhance its reporting features, make its user interface more intuitive, and further reduce false positives for clearer security data.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Acunetix is versatile in deployment options, offering both on-premises and cloud environments. Its customer service, however, has received mixed feedback regarding response times. Tenable Nessus is easily adaptable and praised for effective technical support, although it lacks a 24-hour support option.

Pricing and ROI: Acunetix is critiqued for high pricing despite its strong features, potentially affecting its value perception. Tenable Nessus is cost-effective, offering better overall value, making it attractive for organizations seeking efficient vulnerability management. Both solutions provide ROI by enhancing security and streamlining vulnerability management processes.

To learn more, read our detailed Acunetix vs. Tenable Nessus Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Tenable Nessus

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 884,873 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.6

Entities saw 300% ROI with reduced risk, time savings, cost reduction, and improved security, justifying continued tool use.

Sentiment score

3.0

Tenable Nessus boosts security by enhancing threat visibility, reducing vulnerabilities, saving costs, and achieving high user satisfaction.

It saves a significant amount of time by covering attack surfaces.

Abdullah Ozkan

Information Security Engineer at Tübitak Bilgem

I have seen a return on investment, as Acunetix helps reduce the man-days and effort needed for scanning bulk applications through automated assessments.

Rahul Kumar

Senior Engineer - Penetration Tester at a government with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Acunetix report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Tenable Nessus report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.5

Acunetix support is responsive and helpful, but response times vary, with some delays for high-severity issues noted.

Sentiment score

3.9

Tenable Nessus support is praised for responsiveness and efficiency, with mixed feedback on response times and depth for advanced queries.

For high-severity issues, they reach out within two to three hours, and for critical issues, a response is received within 15 minutes.

Himanshu_Tyagi

Lead Cybersecurity at TBO

The technical support from Invicti is very good and fast.

Abdullah Ozkan

Information Security Engineer at Tübitak Bilgem

Support staff not being familiar with the problem.

Rahul Kumar

Senior Engineer - Penetration Tester at a government with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Acunetix report

We received support within one to three hours.

reviewer1980765

CIO at a insurance company with 201-500 employees

Whenever any issue arises, we contact the support, and they are always there for us.

MuhammadMurtaza

Information security engineer at Cyberisk

The technical support is good yet could improve in terms of response time.

HarshBhardiya

SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Tenable Nessus report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.9

Acunetix is praised for scalability across various environments, despite some dynamic scan issues and the need for Linux support.

Sentiment score

5.2

Tenable Nessus is scalable and flexible for most organizations but may face limitations with very large enterprises.

Acunetix can handle increasing workloads and more applications easily.

Rahul Kumar

Senior Engineer - Penetration Tester at a government with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Acunetix report

Whether managing 50 servers today or 500 tomorrow, performance or capacity are not hindered.

HarshBhardiya

SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Tenable Nessus is definitely scalable, especially for license formats designed for scalability.

David Heed

Security Center Coordinator at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Tenable Nessus report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Acunetix offers stable, reliable scans with minimal issues and high satisfaction, despite occasional upgrade glitches and initial speed concerns.

Sentiment score

5.8

Tenable Nessus is praised for stability and reliability, with high user satisfaction despite minor setup and update issues.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Acunetix report

We have not encountered any issues with missing network items or errors in API and webhook interactions.

HarshBhardiya

SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

The stability of Tenable Nessus is extraordinary.

MohammedJaffir

Founder at Cipheroot

For more quotes and insights, download the Tenable Nessus report

Room For Improvement

Acunetix needs improvements in speed, accuracy, usability, integration, and support to enhance functionality and user satisfaction.

Tenable Nessus requires enhanced reporting, better integration, modern UI, faster scans, accurate detection, and comprehensive IT asset coverage.

The main concern is related to false positives; Acunetix needs to work on identifying valid and invalid findings.

Himanshu_Tyagi

Lead Cybersecurity at TBO

I could supply it with maybe a Swagger file or a JSON file, and Acunetix would pick it up, scan all the endpoints according to the OWASP Top Ten, and give me remediation and actionable remediation reports.

Adetunji Adeoje

Team Lead, Application Security at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Acunetix should have better integration with newer tools such as GitHub and Azure DevOps.

KashifJamil

CEO at Xcelliti

For more quotes and insights, download the Acunetix report

This is Tenable's property. They want to sell Tenable Security Center, and they closed all the API capability for Tenable Nessus Professional.

Kayhan Kayihan

Co-Founder at RSU Consultancy

An AI feature that helps them discover options without requiring them to deep dive into all features or guides them through advisory functions would be beneficial.

reviewer1917156

Freelancer And CEO at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees

The documentation is not well-organized, which can be confusing when searching for solutions or specific information related to Tenable Nessus Professional.

HarshBhardiya

SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Tenable Nessus report

Setup Cost

Acunetix pricing is seen as high and complex, impacting renewal decisions due to cost transparency and fluctuation issues.

Tenable Nessus is valued for affordability and flexibility, though costs vary by organization size, IP count, and region.

The pricing cost is affordable for small and mid-sized organizations, and when compared to Checkmarx, it is significantly affordable, as Checkmarx is quite expensive.

Himanshu_Tyagi

Lead Cybersecurity at TBO

We secured a special licensing model for penetration testing companies, which is cost-effective.

Abdullah Ozkan

Information Security Engineer at Tübitak Bilgem

The pricing of Acunetix is pretty expensive and could be improved.

Srinivas Walikar

Senior Business Development Manager at Intouch World

For more quotes and insights, download the Acunetix report

The pricing for Tenable Nessus has increased significantly, tripling over the last few years.

David Heed

Security Center Coordinator at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees

Tenable Nessus's pricing is adequate if it is fully utilized.

HarshBhardiya

SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

When we compare it to other solutions, it is more difficult for us to negotiate the price for Tenable Nessus than to negotiate the price with Rapid7.

reviewer1917156

Freelancer And CEO at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Tenable Nessus report

Valuable Features

Acunetix provides efficient, comprehensive vulnerability scanning with user-friendly features, accurate detection, and seamless integration, enhancing security management.

Tenable Nessus excels in vulnerability detection, user-friendliness, scalability, real-time monitoring, integration, compliance reporting, and remediation advice.

Its most valuable role is in enhancing security by identifying potential vulnerabilities efficiently.

Srinivas Walikar

Senior Business Development Manager at Intouch World

The solution is excellent at detecting SQL injection and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities.

KashifJamil

CEO at Xcelliti

Rahul Kumar

Senior Engineer - Penetration Tester at a government with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Acunetix report

MohammedJaffir

Founder at Cipheroot

The scanning and reporting features are the most valuable aspects of Tenable Nessus.

HarshBhardiya

SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

The most valuable features of Tenable Nessus include its ease of access and quick usability.

David Heed

Security Center Coordinator at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Tenable Nessus report

Categories and Ranking

Acunetix

Ranking in Vulnerability Management

28th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (14th), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (10th), DevSecOps (6th)

Tenable Nessus

Ranking in Vulnerability Management

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 5.0%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Tenable Nessus	5.0%
Acunetix	1.1%
Other	93.9%

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Rahul Kumar

Senior Engineer - Penetration Tester at a government with 10,001+ employees

Identifies vulnerabilities across bulk web applications but needs better support and cleaner reports

The best feature Acunetix offers is the centralized dashboard and the quality of reports it generates, which includes various options for selecting reports and developer options for directly sharing the reports with developers. The centralized dashboard of Acunetix gives visibility into the security aspects of mass applications; for instance, with more than 200 applications, it provides a valuable overview of findings and necessary fixes, along with a high-level summary that helps us achieve compliance through monthly and sometimes weekly scanning. In terms of reporting, Acunetix is excellent because it can generate different types of reports, such as an executive summary report, detailed reports, and developer reports that can be shared directly with developers. Acunetix positively impacts my organization by helping identify outdated libraries and applications, including legacy applications vulnerable to old attacks based on OWASP Top 10, thus aiding in compliance checks for PCI DSS and OWASP. Acunetix provides a centralized report with compliance-related aspects and a vulnerability timeline, effectively helping reduce vulnerabilities and save time.

Read full review

MohammedJaffir

Founder at Cipheroot

Has enabled me to reduce false positives and perform deep credential auditing with seamless integrations

I mostly use the configuration audit feature for the audit configuration as a scan policy, and I will use it for credential audit, which helps me scan credentials access such as local administrator or root access, performing a deeper and more accurate check of local configuration settings and file systems, making it a highly recommended feature. Regarding integration capabilities, we can integrate Tenable Nessus with SIM tools such as Splunk, IBM QRadar, and Azure Sentinel, as well as with ticketing systems such as ServiceNow, Jira, and Slack. There is no complexity as it is very easy to integrate everything. In terms of the reporting feature, while vulnerability scanning can throw some false positives, Tenable Nessus has very few, achieving a reduction of 75% to 80% false positives with manual analysis needed. We can generate standard Nessus reports that typically include host summaries and vulnerabilities by host and plugin, alongside solutions and remediation recommendations. The main benefits I get from Tenable Nessus are complete asset inventory and comprehensive attack surface management, allowing us to prioritize vulnerabilities based on risk, focusing on true risk and threat path analysis.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	40
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	35

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

I'm using Acunetix to automate security checks. Acunetix helped me catch common vulnerability issues early and improved the overall security posture of the application before development, specifica...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

I would advise anyone or any startup looking to engage in the security part to directly use Acunetix, as this will help in most aspects. I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Acunetix?

The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that the setup cost and pricing need to be reconsidered.

See all answers

How would you choose between Rapid7 InsightVM and Tenable Nessus?

You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid...

See all answers

What's the difference between Tenable Nessus and Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?

Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment solution that is both easy to deploy and easy to manage. The design of the program is such that if a company should desire to handle the installation t...

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What do you like most about Tenable Nessus?

We have around 500 virtual machines. Therefore, we conduct monthly scans and open tickets for our developers to address identified vulnerabilities. These scans cover the servers, other network equi...

See all answers

Comparisons

OWASP Zap vs Acunetix

Compared 11% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs Acunetix

Compared 8% of the time

Invicti vs Acunetix

Compared 6% of the time

Veracode vs Acunetix

Compared 5% of the time

Tenable.io Web Application Scanning vs Acunetix

Compared 3% of the time

More Acunetix Competitors

Qualys VMDR vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 10% of the time

Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 9% of the time

Tenable Security Center vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 6% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 5% of the time

Tanium vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 2% of the time

More Tenable Nessus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

March 2026

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Nessus

February 2026

Download Tenable Nessus product report

Also Known As

AcuSensor

No data available

Overview

Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner is an automated web application security testing tool that audits your web applications by checking for vulnerabilities like SQL Injection, Cross site scripting, and other exploitable vulnerabilities.

Invicti

Tenable Nessus enhances cybersecurity by detecting vulnerabilities with comprehensive scanning, user-friendly dashboards, and automated reporting, providing value in asset management, configuration audits, and compliance.

Providing real-time monitoring and ease of use, Nessus stands out with its integration capabilities, predictive prioritization, extensive plugin system, and cost-effectiveness. It supports vulnerability assessments for networks, applications, and devices, offering detailed reports for continuous security improvement. Nessus' capabilities extend across on-premise and cloud deployments, aiding compliance and remediation processes while aligning with security standards. While robust, it could benefit from enhanced cloud capabilities, improved scanning accuracy, and more flexible licensing options.

What are the standout features of Tenable Nessus?

Comprehensive Scanning: Covers platforms for in-depth vulnerability detection.
User-Friendly Dashboards: Simplifies monitoring with intuitive interfaces.
Automated Reporting: Streamlines data presentation and dissemination.
Integration Capabilities: Connects seamlessly with other tools for enhanced functionality.
Predictive Prioritization: Focuses on vulnerabilities with the greatest impact potential.

What benefits and ROI should users expect when evaluating Tenable Nessus in reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides strong value for investment in anomaly detection.
Real-Time Monitoring: Keeps security threats in check continuously.
Asset Management: Aids in tracking and securing organization-wide assets.
Detailed Reporting: Offers clear insights into compliance and security posture.

Tenable Nessus is implemented widely across industries for internal and external vulnerability assessments and management, aiding organizations in scanning servers, workstations, and network devices. Benefiting sectors prioritize security within their unique environments, leveraging Nessus for its thorough reports and compliance assurance.

Tenable

Sample Customers

Joomla!, Digicure, Team Random, Credit Suisse, Samsung, Air New Zealand

Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Tenable Nessus

March 2026

Free Report: Acunetix vs. Tenable Nessus

Find out what your peers are saying about Acunetix vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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