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Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (18th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
Rapid7 InsightVM
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (4th)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Reviewer6233 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal
While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even greater value. One key area for enhancement is the searching capabilities within its vulnerabilities module. By incorporating the ability to create Boolean searches, users would gain the ability to apply more complex filters and customize their search criteria. This would greatly enhance the precision and efficiency with which security teams can identify and prioritize vulnerabilities. Having such tailored search capabilities would save time and resources by narrowing down vast lists of vulnerabilities to those that meet specific parameters relevant to our unique risk environment. Additionally, integrating more robust reporting and visualization tools would be advantageous. Enhanced dashboards that offer customizable visual representations of risk configurations and threat landscapes would facilitate better communication with stakeholders, making it easier to explain vulnerabilities and the rationale behind certain security measures. This would also aid in demonstrating the improvements and value derived from existing security investments to leadership and non-technical team members.
FL
Senior Manager - Pre-Sales at Trillium Information Security Systems
Offers robust compliance features but needs improved automation in remediation
The automation capability remediation needs improvement. The current process requires manually telling IT teams to remediate vulnerabilities, and then they update the status of these vulnerabilities in the platform. This basic feature that Rapid7 calls an automated remediation process is actually manual. We can update the status of vulnerabilities in the Rapid7 InsightVM platform and collectively see how many vulnerabilities we have identified and how many are remediated by our IT team. More automation in the remediation feature is a basic demand from many customers. The remediation part and vulnerability identification of network devices or rigid devices are not currently supported by Rapid7 InsightVM. More integration and automation are the two areas Rapid7 needs to improve in their product.
MohammedJaffir - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"With Zafran Security, it integrates with your security controls, allowing you to take that risk score and reduce it based on the controls in place or increase the risk based on different factors, such as if the issue is internet reachable or if there's an exploit in the wild."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"The solution is very user friendly and easy to manage."
"It's easy to use. It's fast, it's a powerful easy to access tool."
"This solution is much more user-friendly than past solutions I have used."
"NeXpose is a pretty good vulnerability scanner... There's a nice dashboard."
"InsightVM's most valuable feature is risk scoring, a formula based on different vectors like the ease of exploitation and the availability of the machine."
"The main functionality of identifying item endpoints that weren't properly patched or had vulnerabilities is the solution's most valuable feature."
"One of the most valuable features is it's graphical dashboard feature. It is quite easy to manage the widgets, and we can customize those according to our queries."
"It is stable and scalable."
"It is a mature tool."
"It also has an executive report where you don't have to provide the client all the detail for them to sift though. But if they wish to dig through the detail they can."
"Security is the key number because it can start to scan with a few clicks instead of credits, which is a bit complicated. So simplicity is the first advantage. Then the generated reports are well done and easy to present to management. The quality of the scan is quite good in detecting the severity. The solution has simplicity. Also, it has frequent updates so that is also a valuable feature."
"The solution can scale well."
"It's scalable."
"The stability is very good."
"The product's most valuable features are vulnerability and asset management. It can define the rules and validate the configuration."
"Nessus' most valuable feature is vulnerability management because it helps to discover vulnerabilities proactively and integrates with patch management solutions so you can push patches."
 

Cons

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."
"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."
"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"Within InsightVM, there is no feature to assign a ticket. If we can have more API calls, we can do that from InsightVM."
"The solution could improve by being more secure."
"All products have room for increased security and Rapid7 InsightVM is no exception."
"It would be nice to have an additional feature that would provide reports on who has logged onto the console or who did what on the console."
"We found that after you passed an endpoint, it didn't always reflect it in the next scan. I'm not sure if it was a glitch or some issue with the product's software. That was never clear. That was always an issue and something that definitely needed improvement."
"The product's documentation could be enhanced with clearer and more detailed instructions."
"The reporting has room for improvement. You cannot customize any report. If I need a specific requirement, I have to create a new report for it."
"The InsightVM cannot scan if we connect to our customer by the VPN."
"I would like to see an improvement in the ranking of high, medium and low vulnerability."
"The professional version is not very scalable."
"Tenable Nessus could include a broader range of IT assets."
"Technically, it is an excellent and the best solution available in Libya. My only concern is related to its pricing. They are an emerging company in Libya, and they need to put in some effort to provide us with very good prices so that customers can go with the best solution. Chinese companies are getting into the market here, and they're providing very cheap solutions."
"You can scale Nessus to the extent that you can afford it. You need to have a license for every device you scan. As long as you can afford the increased costs, you won't have a problem scaling it."
"Online learning could be a bit better."
"There could be an integration between Tenable Nessus and other Tenable products. It will help us manage all the solutions using one dashboard."
"The reporting is a bit cumbersome."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We purchase annual licenses."
"Pricing is reasonable because we pay according to asset usage. We can define our assets and sites according to our preference."
"Our licensing costs are somewhere around $40,000 annually. There are no additional fees."
"The license is IP based. How many IPs you are using to scan is the amount of the license you have to buy. The number of users doesn't matter; many users can use it or only person. It depends on the culture of the organization."
"The price of the solution is less than the competitors."
"I do not have experience with the pricing of the solution."
"The solution's pricing is better than Nexus which charges a high amount for very little use."
"Its licensing is yearly. Everything is included in the price for one year."
"The solution has a single price for unlimited assets."
"Its price is high for Libya. The companies here in Libya don't have the awareness of and a good budget for cybersecurity services. If you want them to go for a product, you need to provide something different. This differentiation is related to the price. They should give about 40% to 45% discount per person on the current cost."
"The solution has free options."
"The product pricing is dynamic and varies based on the specific needs of each project and customer."
"When comparing the price of Tenable Nessus to other similar solutions, such as Acunetix, Tenable Nessus is not as expensive. It is averagely priced in the market. We pay for the solution annually."
"We paid about six thousand dollars per license."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The cost is around $4,300 per year. Use is unlimited. You don't pay more if you want to use it for another IP."
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Answers from the Community

NC
Content Manager at PeerSpot
Nov 8, 2021
Nov 8, 2021
You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid7 Insight VM is easy to understand, use, and deploy. This solution supplies many different types of valuable reporting and rarely reports false positives. Rapid7 can easily detect new devices and scan...
See 2 answers
MI
Works at SmallBusinessCompany
Sep 6, 2021
InsightVM - better functions on granting users different access to different asset groups.  It fits better for our company and is slightly cheaper.
Nov 8, 2021
You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid7 Insight VM is easy to understand, use, and deploy. This solution supplies many different types of valuable reporting and rarely reports false positives. Rapid7 can easily detect new devices and scan endpoints quickly for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, or missing patches. Rapid7 Insight VM will identify the risk and suggest how to resolve the problem. We would like to see the reporting improved to offer some of the options other solutions provide. Rapid7 Insight VM can be a very expensive solution - it is really only for larger enterprise accounts. Integration with other solutions would make Rapid7 Insight VM more desirable. It’s easy to combine local testing with network-based testing using Tenable Nessus, which can easily find vulnerabilities across different platforms and operating systems. Tenable Nessus will identify what nodes you have in place, then provide you with a report identifying each vulnerability found by node. It works quickly and stealthily, and offers clear-cut reporting and the ability to scan for specific vulnerabilities. We would like to see the reporting process with Tenable Nessus improved. Instead of only PDF reports, one option might be to track with an Excel-based structure to better track vulnerabilities and remediation efforts and build reports from there. An option to use the same license for the cloud and on-premises at the same time would be very useful. Conclusion We felt that Tenable Nessus provided better reporting of vulnerabilities per device in a clearer, easier to understand manner. It is a very easy solution to use and makes accountability for tracing and reporting vulnerabilities easy. The flexible scanning options offered by Tenable Nessus are what we found most advantageous.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...
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. Yo...
What do you like most about Rapid7 InsightVM?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 InsightVM?
The customers are mostly SMBs, though some enterprise organizations have also deployed the solution. This is neither ...
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 ...
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 addre...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable Nessus?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Tenable Nessus is that the installation is somewhat easi...
 

Also Known As

No data available
InsightVM, NeXpose
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ACS, Acosta, AllianceData, amazon.com, biogen idec, CBRE, CATERPILLAR, Deloitte, COACH, GameStop, IBM
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 InsightVM vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.