Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Nessus Professional 2025: My Findings + Free Trial
Tenable vulnerability management is specifically designed for enterprises and organizations that need to continuously monitor vulnerabilities on the cloud, on-premises, remote assets, and across the entire organization.
This is totally different from Tenable Nessus Professional, which is meant for security consultants, teams, and penetration testers who carry out point-in-time vulnerability assessments on networks and systems.?
I understand you are confused as to which of the cybersecurity solutions to go for. That's why I'm here to guide you.
?I have personally used the free trial to check out both of them and in this Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus Professional comparison guide, I shared my findings and experience to help you make an informed decision as to which of them is the most suitable for the cybersecurity needs of your organization.
Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus Professional At A Glance?
What is the difference between Vulnerability Management and Tenable Nessus Professional?
Tenable Vulnerability Management has a STRONG EDGE over Tenable Nessus Professional. And there is a big difference between them, which you will learn below.
Nature of Asset Coverage
?Tenable vulnerability management, formerly known as Tenable.io totally and fully scans your IT infrastructure.?
This includes hybrid environments, on-premises, and cloud. I even noticed that it integrates with other security management tools like CMDBs - Configuration and Management Database and SIEMs - Security Information and Event Management.?
This enhances its operations and also raises the bar while protecting enterprises from critical cyber exposures that increase business risks.?
Unfortunately, Tenable Nessus Professional doesn't fully scan your entire IT infrastructure. It's limited to scanning only systems and networks where it is installed, plus doesn't even have an extended asset discovery functionality. This makes it unsuitable for enterprises that operate in a hybrid environment.?
Security Architecture and Deployment?
By design, Tenable Vulnerability Management is a cloud-based SaaS cybersecurity solution. No need for on-premises installation like Nessus Professional. And it allows IT experts in organizations to manage vulnerabilities from the web-based interface.? Nessus Professional is designed to be a standalone on-premises security software, installed and set up in a computer to carry out scans aimed at identifying security risks and vulnerabilities within a specific network.?
Management and Tracking Of Assets
In terms of tracking and management of assets, Tenable Vulnerability Management is more effective than Tenable Nessus Professional. It uses unique identifiers UUIDs to provide asset tracking. This ensures continuous monitoring and tracking even if assets change IP addresses - a situation that is common in every complex IT environment.?
From experience, Nessus Professional doesn't support continuous asset tracking, and this is because it uses traditional IP-based scanning. The negative side of it is that it is possible to lose track once an IP address changes.?
Prioritization of Risk
This is a must-have feature for any enterprise that wants to prevent hackers and scammers from exploiting vulnerabilities in their systems. Tenable Vulnerability Management offers this feature, which includes predictive prioritization that leverages machine language to identify and highlight the most important vulnerabilities in your infrastructure based on potential business risk and exploitability.?
Unfortunately, Nessus Professional doesn't offer risk-based prioritization. It only provides static vulnerability scores based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and this isn't enough to identify the most critical vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit easily.
Scalability
For large enterprises and organizations managing thousands of assets without performance degradation, Tenable Vulnerability Management is best suitable for scalability. You can upgrade your security infrastructure, integrate with more third-party tools, and add more resources to boost your cybersecurity capacity without hassle or interruption with daily security operations in your organization.?
This is not so with Nessus Professional, which is limited to a smaller number of assets and doesn't support major upgrades of cybersecurity infrastructure if they need to arise. This is why I recommend it only to smaller organizations, small businesses, or individual security professionals.
Third-party Integration and Automation?
You need third-party cybersecurity plugins or tools to enhance the security of assets in your organization and create workflows that help prioritize risks. Tenable Vulnerability Management integrates with third-party tools like ITSM tools like ServiceNow, SIEMs tools, and cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. Integration with these tools optimizes performance and builds an extra layer of security in your IT environment while automating workflows to make operations seamless.?
Reporting and Compliance?
Executive reporting on cybersecurity management is crucial in any IT environment that wants to measure success and know where to improve.?
Tenable Vulnerability Management has a pre-built compliance report such as PCI, DSS, and CIS plus customizable dashboards that make it easier to monitor compliance and have a comprehensive report of the cybersecurity operations in an organization.?
Nessus Professional supports compliance and reporting but in a limited scope. It focuses more on compliance scanning, which is basic compared to the reporting and compliance abilities of Tenable VM.?
Container and Cloud Security?
Tenable Vulnerability Management has features for cloud security like AWS, Azure GCP, Kubernetes security, and container security.?
This feature offers continuous monitoring and security for cloud environments like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platforms by identifying misconfiguration of various degrees, compliance violations across different assets an organization has and vulnerabilities in IT infrastructure.
?It protects and secures the Kubernetes environment by highlighting vulnerabilities and security lapses in containerized applications, misconfiguration, and other potential security vacuums in deployment.?
Unfortunately, Nessus Professional doesn't have in-built container or cloud security capabilities, thereby making it unsuitable for enterprises that operate in a hybrid and cloud-based IT environment.
What Are The Similarities Between Tenable Vulnerability Management and Tenable Nessus Professional?
There are a few similarities between them.
Vulnerability Scanning Capabilities?
Both have vulnerability scanning capabilities which means they can successfully scan networks to detect misconfigurations, outdated software, weak passwords, and missing security patches. They can also scan operating systems like Windows, Linux, and macOS to identify vulnerabilities in installed software and applications.?
This video shows you how to launch a basic network scan in Nessus Professional:
Compliance and Security Auditing?
Tenable Vulnerability Management and Tenable Nessus Professional help enterprises comply with cybersecurity industry security standards by carrying out compliance scans of different types and generating audit reports for IT experts.?
Some of the regulatory compliance checks are as follows:
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)
ISO 27001 (Information Security Management)
NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
In terms of auditing, both scan for misconfigurations in operating systems, network devices, and databases. They also detect unauthorized changes in configurations and files.?
Analytics and Report
While using the free trial of Tenable Vulnerability Management, it provided a detailed vulnerability report on a business IT infrastructure, which I used to test it.?
For example, it gave a breakdown of vulnerabilities by level of severity and graded them into critical, high, medium, and low.?
Here is Tenable Vulnerability Management Compliance Report Overview:
Tenable Nessus Professional also does the same. They even include a common vulnerability scoring system that helps to prioritize risks, so security experts will know the most critical ones to tackle first.?
There is a feature I observed in both of them that I haven't seen since I have been testing cybersecurity tools, and that is the Historical Trend Analysis. This feature tracks vulnerability trends over time, and the aim is to help enterprises measure their security posture.
User Interface and Ease of Use
They have a beginner-friendly user interface which makes vulnerability scanning and management easier. And their features and functionality are easy to identify and use.
For example, they have a web-based dashboard which on Tenable Vulnerability Management is a cloud-based, and Tenable Nessus Professional is a local web interface. However, both offer a graphical dashboard for managing vulnerability scans and viewing results from a single dashboard. They even have pre-built scan templates for simple security assessments like compliance checks and malware scanning.
Develop By Tenable?
Both Tenable Vulnerability Management and Tenable Nessus Professional were developed by Tenable, a reputable cybersecurity company that is focused on helping individuals, businesses, and enterprises, detect and fix vulnerabilities in their IT infrastructure before hackers take advantage of them. Both use the same vulnerability detection engine and share the same vulnerability database, which is why they can identify the latest security threats faster than other cybersecurity programs.
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Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Nessus Professional: Pricing?
Tenable Vulnerability Management is a bit more expensive than Tenable Nessus Professional. This is because it offers more advanced features that organizations and enterprises need to fortify their security and protect their IT infrastructure.
It has yearly, 2-year, and 3-year plans, and the amount you pay depends on the number of assets you want to protect.?
Let's assume you want to protect 100 assets for one year, the subscription fee is $4,515
For a 2-year subscription to protect 100 assets, the subscription fee is $8, 804.25
And for a 3-year subscription to protect 100 assets, the subscription fee is $12,867.75.
100 assets is the minimum you can protect on Tenable Vulnerability Management. You can protect up to 250 assets.?
On the other side, Tenable Nessus Professional is a bit less expensive compared to Tenable VM. Unlike Tenable Vulnerability Management, which charges based on the number of assets you want to protect, Nessus Professional charges based on the number of licenses you want.?
Let's assume you want 1 license for 1 year, you pay $4,289.25. Then the annual advanced support costs $430. This is not a compulsory subscription for anyone who wants to subscribe to Tenable Nessus Professional.?
There is also the Tenable Nessus Fundamentals on Demand Training, which costs $295.63. This is also NOT compulsory, but it's highly recommended by Tenable.?
Tenable Nessus Professional also has a 2-year subscription, which costs $8,364.05 for 1 license.?
And the 3-year subscription, which costs $12, 224.36 for 1 license.
Tenable Nessus Professional offers discounts on the 2-year and 3-year subscription plans that see you save $214 and $643 respectively.
Both cybersecurity products are from Tenable, and you can make payment via purchase order, PayPal, wire transfer, and credit card.?
What's the difference between Nessus Professional and Tenable Security Center?
Tenable Nessus Professional and Tenable Security Center are two cybersecurity products from Tenable, but they serve different purposes and there are big differences between them.
While Tenable Nessus Professional is primarily designed for cybersecurity practitioners, small security teams, and penetration testers, Tenable Security Center is an enterprise-level vulnerability management platform that collects and analyzes security data from various sources, including Nessus scanners.?
The aim is to continuously monitor compliance and prioritize risks in the IT infrastructure of every enterprise or organization.
Now let's look at how their features differ.
Usage and Deployment: Tenable Nessus Professional is designed to be installed on Windows, macOS, and Linux devices and used for scanning particular targets in a network while Tenable Security Center functions as a centralized management console that collects security data from different Nessus scanners deployed across various locations.
Continuous Monitoring & Vulnerability Scanning: Tenable Nessus Professional focuses solely on-demand vulnerability scanning. As an IT expert, you can configure scans, run them manually, or on a schedule, and analyze the results.
?Tenable Security Center offers continuous monitoring and real-time risk assessment. This helps enterprises track vulnerabilities and prioritize how to respond to threats.
Reporting and Compliance: Tenable Nessus Professional offers basic vulnerability reports that IT experts use just for compliance purposes. Tenable Security Center provides advanced compliance reports that help enterprises meet regulatory standards like DSS, PCI, and HIPAA.
Risk Prioritization and Asset Tracking: Tenable Nessus Professional uses IP addresses to identify vulnerabilities and hardly maintains a long-term record of scanned assets while Tenable Security Center provides asset-based tracking, which simply means it keeps historical vulnerability data and allows enterprises to track changes over time.
Risk Scoring and Threat Intelligence: Tenable Nessus Professional doesn't have advanced risk prioritization, instead focuses only on vulnerability detection. This is different from Tenable Security Center, which integrates threat intelligence feeds to make vulnerabilities a priority based on real-world threats.?
Pricing: In terms of cost, Nessus Professional seems less expensive. At least we know the amount to pay yearly for one license ($4,289.25). Tenable Security Center has custom pricing, and we all know that custom pricing costs more because you enjoy customized security features tailored to the cybersecurity needs of your organization.
What's the difference between a Tenable Nessus Expert and a Professional?
Nessus Professional is a cybersecurity product from Tenable designed for penetration testers, IT security experts, and independent cybersecurity consultants. It focuses on scanning the internal IT infrastructure of enterprises including network devices, workstations, and servers.?
This is different from Nessus Expert which is designed for organizations and enterprises dealing with external attack surfaces, infrastructure as code attack security, and cloud security.?
Its scope of operations are beyond internal scanning of IT infrastructure as it also scans external assets of enterprises for vulnerabilities. In addition, it includes every feature on Nessus Professional.?
Let's look at a few major differences.
Cloud Security Scanning: Nessus Expert can scan for vulnerabilities in cloud services like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud which many organizations and enterprises use. Nessus Professional doesn't have such a capability.
External Attack Surface: Nessus scans the internal and external IT infrastructure of organizations to identify vulnerabilities, while Nessus Professional scans only the internal IT infrastructure of enterprises.?
Infrastructure as Code Security: Nessus Expert scans IaC configurations like Terraform, and Kubernetes to identify security risks before deployment. Unfortunately, Nessus Professional lacks IaC scanning capabilities. This makes it irrelevant to DevOps teams.?
Pricing: In terms of pricing, Nessus Expert is more expensive than Nessus Professional, and this is understandable because of the advanced features it offers.
For both of them, the amount you pay depends on the number of licenses you want.
Nessus Expert costs $6,439.25 for one year for one license, while Nessus Professional costs $4,289.25 for one year for one license.
Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Security Center: Which is the difference?
Tenable Vulnerability Management is meant for enterprises and organizations that want flexible and scalable security solutions. It offers continuous vulnerability monitoring of assets within and out of the IT infrastructure of an organization.?
Tenable takes care of its update and maintenance, eliminating the need for on-premises maintenance setup.?
This is different from Tenable Security Center, meant for organizations with strict compliance and security policies. It's an on-premises security vulnerability management platform and requires internal deployment and frequent maintenance by the security team.
Here are a few major differences between them.
Cloud Security and External Attack Surface: Tenable vulnerability management offers external attack surface scanning that monitors internet-facing assets and integrates with cloud services like Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.
Maintenance and Deployment: Tenable Vulnerability Management is cloud-based, and this means it requires no on-premises maintenance. Tenable Security Center requires on-premises deployment, which makes it hard to set up and maintain.?
Customization and Control: Tenable SC offers more control over reporting, dashboard, and policies. This isn't so with Tenable Vulnerability Management which offers less customization, however, it gains from maintenance and automatic updates.
Pricing: In terms of pricing, Tenable Vulnerability Management charges $4,515 for one year for the protection of 100 assets.? Tenable Security Center offers custom pricing. This means you have to contact the sales team of Tenable for pricing.?
Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Nessus Professional: What Reddit Users Say
I jumped on Reddit to get a feel of what Reddit users have to say about both cybersecurity products from Tenable.?
A security expert who uses Tenable Vulnerability Management prefers it because it is cloud-based and offers advanced features that Nessus Professional lacks. According to him, large organizations that want to continuously monitor vulnerabilities in their assets internally and externally need the Tenable VM, while Nessus Professional is specifically meant for individual security Experts and Penetration Testers who operate in a small IT environment.
Another user who tested Nessus Professional before upgrading to Tenable Vulnerability Management says that Nessus Professional works on a smaller scale and has different licensing costs, while Tenable Vulnerability Management is intended for larger deployments with multiple users.
Is Nessus owned by Tenable?
Nessus Professional, Nessus Expert, and even Tenable Vulnerability Management are owned by Tenable, a cybersecurity company founded in 2002 and based in the United States. Nessus is just one of the cybersecurity solutions Tenable offers to help small businesses, organizations, and enterprises scan and monitor vulnerabilities across their IT environment.?
Is Nessus the best Vulnerability Scanner?
Nessus is one of the best vulnerability scanners in the industry but whether it is the best depends on your needs, budget, and IT environment.
But here are some of the factors that make it a reliable vulnerability scanner:
Final thoughts?
Tenable Vulnerability Management offers more advanced features than Nessus Professional. It scans fully your IT infrastructure including hybrid and cloud-based, integrates with third-party tools like ITSM tools like ServiceNow, SIEMs tools, and cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud, prioritizes risk based on exploitability, and supports on-demand scalability.?
Nessus Professional lacks this feature which enterprises require to be fully in charge of the cybersecurity of their IT environment both internally and externally.
My simple recommendation is this. Go for Tenable Vulnerability Management if you are an enterprise or an organization that wants to continuously monitor vulnerabilities on cloud, on-premises, and remote assets.?
Go with Nessus Professional if you're a cybersecurity expert, teams, and penetration testers who carry out point-in-time vulnerability assessments on systems and networks.