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Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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 (16th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (1st)
Rapid7 InsightVM
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (4th)
Tenable Nessus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Rapid7 InsightVM15.0%
Qualys VMDR16.8%
Tenable Security Center10.9%
Other57.3%
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tenable Nessus8.4%
Wiz11.7%
Qualys VMDR7.1%
Other72.8%
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.
Anusha Sadasivani - PeerSpot reviewer
Rapid deployment and user-friendly architecture streamline vulnerability management but customer support response needs improvement
We are still using Rapid7 InsightVM I personally still use Rapid7 InsightVM. We use Rapid7 InsightVM for vulnerability scanning. It supports both agent-based and agentless scanning, which is part of our vulnerability management strategy. The agentless scan in Rapid7 InsightVM is effective and…
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 has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"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 is an excellent tool."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"It's a relevant management tool."
"The reports in Rapid7 InsightVM are useful when compared to competitors."
"There are many integrations with things like the VMware NSX that are great, the reporting is really solid."
"InsightVM has a very organized GUI with ease of use."
"The performance is good."
"I have been in contact with technical support and they are not bad."
"When you connect any new device to the network, Rapid7 has the ability to detect the new device immediately. It can scan that device to detect if it has any vulnerability. It tells you what is vulnerable and what has been misconfigured. It also tells you what is the risk of that misconfiguration or lack of patches and how to resolve the problem."
"It's easy to use. It's fast, it's a powerful easy to access tool."
"The features I personally like include host discovery."
"Out of the box, the product works well for us, so it's not a tool that we need to customize very much."
"The most valuable features of Tenable Nessus include its ease of access and quick usability."
"The automatic scanner and scheduler are pretty cool."
"I have experience with it on my attack stations, and it's pretty good to optimize. Personally, I think Nessus is quite a good product."
"Overall Zoom is a good solution."
"Its initial setup was simple and straightforward."
"It does exactly what you expect it to do, and its pricing is great. We couldn't really ask for a better deal."
 

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."
"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."
"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"Their customer support should be improved, and the effectiveness of scans also needs to be improved."
"There should be containerization within the VM."
"The team needs to improve the speed and focus on the new bandwidth feed. Sometimes, it takes a while to scan, especially with new updates."
"The product's documentation could be enhanced with clearer and more detailed instructions."
"The product does not have the capability to do dynamic scanning of non-web applications."
"The drawback is that it is still not a fully SaaS solution, so you must deploy a console."
"There have been instances where technical support takes a long time to update the status of a ticket, which is something that can be improved."
"Rapid7 InsightVM could be easier to use for those who are using it for the first time."
"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."
"One significant drawback we encounter is the tool's tendency to flag patched packages incorrectly. For instance, if a package is patched by Debian maintainers but not updated to a major or minor version, Nessus may still flag it as vulnerable based on its database. This discrepancy leads to false alarms and requires our developers, system admins, and DevOps teams to address them."
"The product must be more comprehensive."
"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."
"The tool needs to upgrade asset tracking."
"The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly."
"The pricing point has increased significantly in recent years. The product's pricing has roughly tripled within the last couple of years, making us reconsider renewing the license for the scanner."
"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."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The solution is a bit more reasonably priced than other products."
"Pricing is reasonable because we pay according to asset usage. We can define our assets and sites according to our preference."
"InsightVM is an expensive product, especially compared to its competitors, at around a million NOK per year."
"A full license for the solution is expensive because it is at the organizational level and not by individual users."
"It is pretty expensive. It depends on what you consider pricey, however, if you only look at vulnerability management solutions, such as within VM or VMDR, there are, I suppose the prices are almost the same. But I believe you will discover that for yourself."
"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 pricing is much more manageable versus other products."
"The solution is worth the cost. It's a good investment."
"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."
"There is an annual license required to use this solution."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is too expensive for each service center."
"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."
"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."
"The price of Tenable Nessus could improve, it is expensive."
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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
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
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.
865,985 professionals have used our research since 2012.