Tenable Nessus Reviews

I implement the solution as a vulnerability management tool for client use cases. It can be used for public factors because it sits right where you have tie in and bleeds over or in between other tools as another piece in the EDR puzzle. The solution identifies vulnerabilities, applies patches, and provides some other EDR results. 

I have also used the solution in environments where customers only want to pay for master's licensing and conduct vulnerability scanning for 100 to 12,000 endpoints. It took 23 days to create a security center from that page with data imports and API plugins. 

It really just depends on what you need, where your money lies, and what you want to get from the solution at the endpoints. 

The solution has a single price for unlimited assets. Value wise, the solution is also great for pen testers and consultants. 

The solution is useful for vulnerability and patch management from both the internal and public facing sides. 

Quick assessments, compliance scores, and results are provided without having to do agents. 

It would be nice for the professional module to include some of the reports available in the expert module. 

I have been using the solution for ten years. 

The solution is very stable so stability is rated a ten out of ten. 

The scalability is not an issue for the solution itself because it is a software. Scalability really depends on your hardware. 

I have not needed technical support. A colleague reported that a licensing issue took two weeks to resolve. A bigger client was trying to buy five licenses and it took two months. It seems most issues revolve around purchasing or upgrading licenses.  

The setup is straightforward. 

I implement the solution for customers. 

The solution has a single price for unlimited assets and offers both professional and expert modules. The professional module is agentless. The expert module costs around $2,000 and includes agents. 

Be sure you have an appropriate amount of time available if you are not running an agent-based system. Pulling in results for 15,000 endpoints takes time because the solution can only fetch data for eight to ten endpoints at a time. You have to scan or you will have network traffic load issues. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We have around 500 virtual machines. Therefore, we conduct monthly scans and open tickets for our developers to address identified vulnerabilities. These scans cover the servers, other network equipment, and appliances in our infrastructure. 

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. 

It would be beneficial if it could handle minor additions to versions similar to how Debian manages its patches. This feature would allow it to differentiate between patched and non-patched versions.

I have been using the product for ten years. 

Tenable Nessus is very stable. We encountered some issues with scanning certain network equipment but resolved them by adjusting the parameters. Our main focus is scanning our servers; we haven't experienced any significant problems with that process.

My company has three users. 

We haven't contacted Tenable Nessus for assistance or questions because we haven't encountered any serious issues, and we are generally satisfied with the product.

We chose Tenable Nessus because we primarily rely on open-source products as a publicly funded institution. About ten years ago, we conducted research to determine the best option, and at that time, it stood out as the preferred choice.

Tenable Nessus' deployment is straightforward. 

The product is free. 

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. 

We use Tenable Nessus as a vulnerability management tool. It helps identify vulnerabilities in our system, how to address them, and what mitigation steps are required. We can assign high, medium, or low priority levels and schedule scans to run at specific times. The tool generates vulnerability assessment reports, valuable in our organization's environment for continuous security assessment.

We can onboard our organization's access and run scans as needed. We can also share the scan results every year and perform many other tasks with Tenable.

It’s a strong vulnerability assessment tool for management and serviceability. It is a reliable product that helps us identify vulnerabilities in our system effectively. I use it to scan our environment with SSM and generate vulnerability assessment reports.

The dashboard could be improved.

I have been using Tenable Nessus for two years.

Our team has 10-15 people using this solution. It’s a good tool for vulnerability assessment, and we can identify vulnerabilities in our organization. At this time, we can effectively use it within our organization.

I rate the solution’s scalability a nine out of ten.

It is expensive.

I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

The tool was used mainly to do network and security scans in some designated areas. It was part of maintaining the ISO 27k certification for some countries, like Turkey, Egypt, and India. Another usage was that we had regular and yearly scans planned as part of policies on some other network areas that would do network management in the central region and Internet-shared network.

Security is the key number because it can start to scan with a few clicks compared to Qualys, 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.

We've got several versions of Tenable, and the one we use is the professional. It's the only one I know because we did not explore others. It was called Nessus Professional, and it should not be confused with Nessus Enterprise, Tenable, or tenable.sc or tenable.io. In Nessus Professional, the main drawback was that we could have a single-user login password. So it could be better in terms of security. Of course, we could have as many users as we wanted, and we got about fifteen users, but we couldn't distinguish the rules in this solution. If you wanted to allow some people to do a scan of some areas and some other areas, we would have to go through an expensive version. So, with the professional edition, the management of users needed to be improved. We could have a new user-defined.

I have been using the solution since 2003.It has been twenty years.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. Fifteen users are using the solution.

The technical support team is good. But one drawback is that they must give more attention to small customers. We had only ten licenses in the professional mode, one of the cheapest.

So we found it easy to get attention and always found the solution.

Neutral

The initial setup was easy.

We paid about six thousand dollars per license.

I evaluated Qualys but the pricing scheme was different so did not go with that. Although Tenable was much more limited than Qualys.

People should use it because it is straightforward and simple. I would rate it seven out of ten, for the simplicity of usage and the quality of the security assessment that is done and the reporting.

Tenable Nessus is vulnerability management software. We install Nessus scanners on all our workstations and laptops. It runs scans to check for outdated software and vulnerabilities. At the beginning of each month, I send notes out to the admins about what needs to be updated, and I check at the end of the month to make sure it's done. 

Nessus helps us keep our software up to date to avoid security vulnerabilities. It's a good tool for auditing our vulnerability management. 

My favorite part about Nessus is that you can customize the tool to scan exactly what you want. Microsoft releases new patches monthly on Patch Tuesday, and a lot of companies track that date. I set up Nessus for the day after Patch Tuesday to see which devices have already pushed those updates from Microsoft, so we can stay updated. 

Tenable stays on top of new IT trends in vulnerability management because there's constant innovation. They keep up with the industry. In the past few years, everything has shifted to cloud-based servers. It's a long-term trend that COVID accelerated. Tenable came out with a tool for that. 

Nessus  is pretty stable if you have a disaster recovery plan in place. We've never had an outage. The stability depends on the servers where it is running. 

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.

I rate Tenable support 10 out of 10. They're top-of-the-line.  It's the best support I've worked with so far. 

Positive

I rate Tenable Nessus nine out of 10. I recommend creating a Tenable Community account. Tenable uses that for support, but they also have a massive library of training videos that they call Tenable University. You can also access the Tenable Community forums where experts and general users can share information and ask questions. 

Tenable is for scanning the vulnerabilities on the endpoint. That's the prime use case. It can also be extended for scanning web publications, et cetera. 

Nessus is a very stable product. And it has been a pioneer and has been around for a long time. Their vulnerability dashboards are very good to use.

It is easy to set up.

The solution can scale well. 

The pricing is reasonable. 

While the pricing is quite good, any client would, of course, like it to be a bit less. 

We'd like to see the solution embrace more user-friendliness. That said, currently, we are happy with the product.

I've used the solution for a while. it's been a couple of years. 

It is a stable, reliable product. The performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

I have found the product to be scalable. 

We generally don't have a lot of requirements for tech support with Tenable. We have been using it for so long, we have received quite a good amount of training from them at this point. Therefore, we don't look for a lot of tech support.

The setup is quite straightforward and simple. I wouldn't describe the process as overly complex. 

The deployment time depends on how the endpoints are distributed. If it is a single one within one country and one region, it is very fast. We can do it in less than three months.

We are consultants. We can assist users with the setup process. 

It's not an overly expensive solution. It's pretty affordable. 

Users pay an annual licensing fee. 

I'm a consultant. 

We can deploy the solution either on-premises or on the cloud. 

I'd advise potential new users to look at what the landscape is. And based on the landscape, they should be able to fit the product. You need to first consider your strategy and build towards that. We would recommend this solution to others if it seems to fit their needs. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Our company uses the solution for vulnerability scanning. 

The solution is easy to understand for users because instructions are included on the platform. 

Scanning capabilities are vast with built-in configurations that are pre-coded for various types of servers. 

There are very few false positives reported. 

It is easy to access and share reports. For example, consultants can extract reports, remove columns if needed, and share final copies with clients. 

Vulnerability recommendations are outdated and not in line with industry standards. 

The reporting tool should allow fancier customizations such as pivot or formula-based options. 

Cloud reviews should be a focus because AWS is taking over the market. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The solution is very, very stable and is considered the leader in stability. 

The solution is very scalable and we have it on every server in our organization with no issues. We only provide user-level access to our security teams. 

Technical support is very good and responsive. 

A few months back, we utilized their assistance for configurations on a custom EMI. They were very helpful and indicated the next upgrade would include a checklist and benchmarking documents for manual completion. 

The setup is very straightforward. 

The implementation was handled by Tenable. There was a one-time installation cost of $500-$1,000 which was nominal for our large organization. 

Tenable either connects virtually or comes onsite to deploy the solution across your entire network.  

Routine maintenance is performed on a local machine with no server needs. This occurs about three times a year by our in-house team. 

Our organization is huge so our license costs $30,000. We are one of the biggest financial sector groups in India, so are charged appropriately. 

Pricing is rated a seven out of ten because it is reasonable but always could be cheaper.

We use both the solution and Qualys which are leading tools in the industry.

Qualys is a complicated tool for users because it does not include easy-to-access instructions. It also reports more false positives. 

The solution is easier to use and includes instructions for running scans. 

Overall, the solution is a better tool than Qualys. 

The solution is a great tool for automation and reducing your team's efforts. If you have the budget and knowledgeable staff, then I recommend you use it. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use it predominantly for vulnerability scanning and compliance scanning as part of the vulnerability and compliance protocols in one of our programs.

The ease of use is the primary valuable feature. This specific version is very straightforward. I like the ability to modify it and configure it based on the different policies.

I also like the number of plugins. It has quite a lot of plugins that keep it up to date with the different vulnerabilities coming out.

Multiple user access would be an area for improvement from a user-access perspective. A role-based access control feature would be great because at present, there is a limitation with only one account. If that account gets compromised or gets locked, then we will encounter problems.

It would be good to have a way to store filters from searches so that you don't have to recreate them from scratch every time. To be able to have them saved as a list of filters would be really useful.

It would be really useful to have a way to assess the risk of a specific vulnerability based on a number of factors which could be tailored. It could be a tailored set of factors you introduce to see a potential risk score or a different view of the CVSS score.

A lot of organizations do this manually, and some of them have some other ways of identifying or assessing the risk of vulnerabilities. It would be really useful to have a framework which allows you to create a way to assess the risk of vulnerabilities on the platform and potentially prioritize them or provide information as a report to management or to other teams for resolution.

It would be really nice to have a way to visualize the different results from the scans. For example, if you scan a Windows 2016 Server and you have a number of vulnerabilities, it would be nice to somehow show the vulnerabilities in a graphical format and potentially combine some of the outcomes into a graphical representation showing trending. Trending is quite important, especially when I speak to my senior management stakeholders and try to show the security posture and status. It would help to provide a long and wide view of where the vulnerabilities are and what kind of aging is present.

I've used it for three and a half years.

Nessus Manager is very stable; I haven't had any problems. I'd give the stability of the product a five out of five.

The product itself is not scalable by design. It is a single-user product, so it doesn't allow you to have multiple users at the same time. You have only one account. The type of product that we're using is not really meant for huge enterprises, and it's a bit more limited in terms of usage.

At present, I use the personal version for the account I'm looking after, but we probably have less than five people using this platform.

The initial setup was easy.

We implemented it ourselves. The deployment was done by one engineer, and it did not take too long.

The project in which I have been using it, it has been great because we satisfy a very crucial requirement. We have brought around vulnerability management, so it's really good ROI for what we have.

Nessus Manager is not an expensive product. It has its limitations, but the pricing reflects that.

We have a yearly subscription.

I would recommend Nessus Manager and rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten.

We use this solution for network and device scanning. Massive scanners have been integrated with the security center. We scan devices and pull the report from the security center. We publish the report to respective stakeholders, and we maintain the reports for our records. The reports show vulnerabilities, plugin text, and plugin outputs. We analyze the report and try to close the vulnerabilities identified in the scan.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

There are about 10 people using this solution in my organization. They were part of the security team and were doing the scanning and remediation. I led the team and dealt with any challenges.

My organization is a service provider. We provide security services to clients.

The vulnerability scanner is the most valuable feature. It's an important feature for us. We use the plugin output for that. It shows us the exact version of Nessus and what is needed for remediation. Based on that, we decide what should be remediated first to get the best result for security.

The agent scanner is a valuable feature. We also do credential scans, which gives the equivalent report. In the log project situation, we receive very good support from Nessus. They have built one policy for the log project itself. With the help of that policy and the plugins specified for the log project, the scans were faster for that project.

If we run a scan, it will usually check all of the plugins, which is a time-consuming process. We received help, and we had one plugin for the log project. That was for checking the log project only because we were already done with the complete scan.

I would like to see more on the automation side. There should be proper tools and support for automation in Tenable itself.

I have used this solution for more than four years.

It's a stable solution, but we noticed that the agent wasn't being updated. This means we have to update it manually and run a few commands to get the service running. If the solution isn't updated with the latest version, it will go offline.

We receive very good technical support from the team in India. We're very happy with them. I'm also in touch with some people from Tenable India. They helped me understand the requirements and the solution's latest features.

I would rate technical support as four out of five because they could always improve.

Initial setup was easy. That's why I proposed the solution to my current organization. 

The deployment process completely depends on approvals and how we're getting the procurement of hardware and the licenses. It depends on the organization.

The solution is worth the cost. It's a good investment. 

I have also evaluated Qualys. There were some missing features, so we weren't able to detect vulnerabilities related to specific software, like Adobe and Java.

I have also used Tenable.sc.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten. 

For those who want to use this solution, my advice is to go to Tenable's website and read about the solution so you can properly understand its features. There are demo videos too. That will help you make a decision about whether you want to use the tool or not.

I would definitely recommend this solution to others who want to use it.

We have clients, and we are a vendor. We have deployed Tenable Nessus users with the help of the Principal on the client's environment. I have experience with the deployment and the scanning.

The features I personally like include host discovery. For web servers, there are individual options available. There are many options that are useful to us.

Sometimes, the categorization for clients was tricky at first, however, they eventually got used to it.

I haven't faced any issues as of now. It has been stable with no critical issues, technical issues, or downtimes.

The support has been really cooperative. Whenever any issue arises, we contact the support, and they are always there for us. The support is pretty good.

Positive

The deployment was done by the Tenable team, and I was part of this process.

I definitely recommend Tenable Nessus for network scanning and other tasks.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.