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Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (27th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (6th)
Rapid7 InsightVM
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (4th)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
Mahmoud Elhamaymy - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable scanning and integration strengthen security infrastructure
InsightVM has a very organized GUI with ease of use. The vulnerability scans are reliable, and the credential scan is a beneficial feature. The solution is efficient and trustworthy. It's based on the CVSS risk scoring system, which is well-recognized and effective. The integration capabilities through APIs allow easy integration with existing security infrastructure.
HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
Provided increased visibility across the organization's servers
The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly. Additionally, the documentation is not well-organized, which can be confusing when searching for solutions or specific information related to Tenable Nessus Professional. The reporting feature could be improved by allowing users to create their own templates instead of relying on predefined ones.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"The product is scalable."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's user interface is good and has some vulnerability prioritization."
"I have been in contact with technical support and they are not bad."
"We feel the interface is very good. It is very easy to use, even a nontechnical person can use it."
"InsightVM offers a robust platform for identifying, prioritizing, and addressing vulnerabilities across an organization's IT infrastructure."
"InsightVM has a very organized GUI with ease of use."
"The solution is good because it has a lot of options."
"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."
"Makes ransomware checking and OS auditing and implementation relatively easy."
"The results are not that bad, but the key selling point is that it is an affordable tool set."
"Tenable Nessus has a good performance, is very user-friendly, and is easy to use."
"Once you get past the initial implementation, the solution is very stable."
"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."
"The scanning and reporting features are the most valuable aspects of Tenable Nessus."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is website scanning."
 

Cons

"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 solution could improve by being more secure."
"The reporting is very bad when you compare it with other vulnerability assessment tools."
"Within InsightVM, there is no feature to assign a ticket. If we can have more API calls, we can do that from InsightVM."
"It is still not a fully cloud-based solution. It will be helpful for customers if it is a complete cloud solution. It is a hybrid solution at the moment."
"The reporting could be better."
"Reporting could be expanded."
"The solution should include a tighter integration with third-party threat modeling and threat intelligence tools."
"There are end-user needs and expectations that are being overlooked in the development that could be addressed by appointing a customer advisory board."
"We feel the solution's technical support to be very bad."
"Tenable Nessus application device assessment is one of the top tools. However, in the application security assessment, there are other tools that provide better, and more accurate findings."
"There should be a possibility to install agents on scanned machines. Tenable IO provides the capability of using local agents to check local problems, but this feature is not there in Tenable Nessus Professional. It would be nice to have something similar in Tenable Nessus Professional. We should have the capability to use local agents installed on the machines to locally check a problem."
"Scans aren't done properly and some devices aren't pinged."
"Vulnerability recommendations are outdated and not in line with industry standards."
"They need more flexible pricing."
"Tenable Nessus could include a broader range of IT assets."
"The reporting feature needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Comparing the price with the value that we receive, I am not happy with it."
"The product is cheaper than the other similar tools available in the market."
"Its pricing depends on the number of users per month."
"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."
"Its licensing is yearly. Everything is included in the price for one year."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The solution is a bit more reasonably priced than other products."
"InsightVM is an expensive product, especially compared to its competitors, at around a million NOK per year."
"Nessus is affordable, but its licensing model could be improved with more flexibility for adding assets."
"The price is high for the solution. There are free tools with similar functionality available. The solution cost approximately $3,500."
"Tenable Nessus is affordable."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product is free."
"Tenable Nessus needs to be licensed. We own a license for the security center and that license is charged by the number of IP addresses that you can scan. You're allowed to have as many scanners as you want and there's no license for the number of scanners. We have a bunch of Nessus scanners out there, and as long as we're comfortable with staying under that IP address limit, that's really all we have to be concerned about."
"Cost-wise, it's an affordable tool."
"We pay approximately $2,500 on a yearly basis."
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Answers from the Community

NC
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
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
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
40%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
I find that the pricing for Zafran aligns well with the comprehensive features it offers. The asset and user-based li...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even ...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
Our primary use case for Zafran involves leveraging it to enhance our vulnerability risk scoring methodology. In toda...
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?
Rapid7 InsightVM is expensive, possibly one of the highest in pricing among similar products.
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?
The pricing for Tenable Nessus has increased significantly, tripling over the last few years. We have not renewed the...
 

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.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.