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Tenable Nessus pros and cons

Vendor: Tenable
4.2 out of 5
Badge Leader

Pros & Cons summary

Buyer's Guide

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Tenable Nessus is highly valued for its vulnerability detection and management capabilities.
Users appreciate the easy setup and straightforward installation process of Tenable Nessus.
Tenable Nessus integrates effectively with other tools and supports streamlined scanning processes.
Many users find Tenable Nessus to be cost-effective and scalable, offering significant value for its affordability.
The reporting feature of Tenable Nessus is robust and provides insightful recommendations for vulnerability remediation.

CONS

False positives are an issue with Tenable Nessus, causing unnecessary work and confusion.
The reporting feature in Tenable Nessus is cumbersome and not user-friendly.
Pricing has become a significant concern, as it has increased dramatically in recent years.
Integration with other vendors' IPS solutions could be improved to automate processes.
Scalability issues exist, particularly for large enterprises needing flexible pricing and licensing options.
 

Tenable Nessus Pros review quotes

AK
IT Manager at Medmen
Aug 29, 2018
It provides multiple recommendations towards the remedy of vulnerabilities.
LS
Managing partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Oct 24, 2018
We looked at Tenable, Qualys and Rapid7. We found Tenable was the best of all three.
TK
Senior Consultant at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 28, 2018
Tenable Nessus streamlines the process of scanning for our organization.
Learn what your peers think about Tenable Nessus. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
KS
Security Professional at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Jan 10, 2019
I find the features that are most valuable are the policies that help us identify the vulnerabilities. These policies are then used for scanning instabilities and then identifying the particular vulnerabilities.
SD
Senior Infrastructure Project Manager at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
Sep 8, 2019
The solution is very stable.
JK
Senior Systems Administrator at Government Scientific Source, Inc.
Nov 7, 2019
The most valuable feature is how it scanned and detected through its database to let us know exactly what fixes we needed to put in place for the vulnerabilities. It detects and it also gives you the way to fix it.
reviewer1229910 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Architect at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Nov 13, 2019
The most valuable feature is the breadth of vulnerabilities that it finds. It's able to find across a lot of different platforms and operating systems. It's also able to combine local testing with network-based testing.
KC
President and Sr CISO Consultant at Micro Strategies
Nov 14, 2019
Nessus is good at finding out what nodes you have in place. It will then provide you a report, by node, of what the vulnerabilities are. It does it quickly and stealthfully.
it_user885369 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 26, 2019
Among the most valuable features are scanning for vulnerabilities and the reporting. The reporting templates are okay. I like that I can see all the hosts with different vulnerabilities.
reviewer1239462 - PeerSpot reviewer
CISO at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Nov 27, 2019
Nessus gives me a good preview of vulnerabilities and good suggestions for remediation. It's easy to find a description of a given vulnerability and solutions for it.
 

Tenable Nessus Cons review quotes

AK
IT Manager at Medmen
Aug 29, 2018
They should improve the I/O reporting and the customized spreadsheet export feature.
LS
Managing partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Oct 24, 2018
From my point of view the solution basically is not for the big enterprise.
TK
Senior Consultant at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 28, 2018
This is still a maturing product. Tenable is only a scanner for one ability, while other solutions like Rapid7 have more tools for verification. We still have to manually verify to see if the vulnerability is a false positive or not.
Learn what your peers think about Tenable Nessus. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
KS
Security Professional at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Jan 10, 2019
We have had some false positives in the past, which we hope can improve in the future.
SD
Senior Infrastructure Project Manager at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
Sep 8, 2019
I would like to see an improvement in the ranking of high, medium and low vulnerability.
JK
Senior Systems Administrator at Government Scientific Source, Inc.
Nov 7, 2019
There is room, overall, for improvement in the way it groups the workstations and the way it detects, when the vulnerability is scanned. Even when we would run a new scan, if it was an already existing vulnerability, it wouldn't put a new date on it.
reviewer1229910 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Architect at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Nov 13, 2019
There is room for improvement in finishing the transition to the cloud. We'd like to see them keep on improving the Tenable.io product, so that we can migrate to it entirely, instead of having to keep the Tenable.sc on-prem product.
KC
President and Sr CISO Consultant at Micro Strategies
Nov 14, 2019
One area with room for improvement is instead of there just being a PDF format for output, I'd like the option of an Excel spreadsheet, whereby I could better track remediation efforts and provide reporting off of that.
it_user885369 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 26, 2019
We use credentialed scans. They need more permissions and more changes or settings on Windows and Linux.
reviewer1239462 - PeerSpot reviewer
CISO at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Nov 27, 2019
One area that has room for improvement is the reporting. I'm preparing reports for Windows and Linux machines, etc. Currently, I'm collecting three or four reports and turning them into one report. I don't know if it is possible to combine all of them in one report, but that would be helpful.