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Nessus

The most trusted vulnerability assessment solution

As of 30 August 2026, Nessus starts at $4790/year. Nessus is the world's most deployed vulnerability assessment solution. Softwr lists it under Cybersecurity. Nessus is made by Tenable Inc, launched in 2002, available on Windows, macOS, API.

Overview

What Nessus does

Nessus is the world's most deployed vulnerability assessment solution. It helps security professionals identify vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance issues across IT infrastructure.

What people use it for

  • Vulnerability scanning for individual practitioners
  • Enterprise vulnerability management
  • Web application security assessments

The honest half

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Nessus.

  • Nessus Professional is $4,790 for one year, with no free or low cost commercial tier
  • Multi year terms are the only discount route, at $9,330.95 for two years and $13,637.54 for three
  • It is a single user scanner, so team workflows mean migrating to another Tenable product
  • Tenable One vulnerability management is priced separately, starting at $3,500 a year for 100 assets

Cross-shopped

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Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Pricing

What Nessus costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Nessus Professional

$4,790 /yr

  • 1 year license
  • Best for individual security professionals

Nessus Professional 2-Year

$9,330.95 /2 years

  • 2 year license with discounted rate vs. annual

Nessus Professional 3-Year

$13,637.54 /3 years

  • 3 year license with discounted rate vs. annual

Nessus Expert

$6,790 /yr

  • 1 year license
  • Enhanced capabilities vs. Professional

Nessus Expert 2-Year

$13,208.13 /2 years

  • 2 year license with discounted rate vs. annual

Nessus Expert 3-Year

$19,304.19 /3 years

  • 3 year license with discounted rate vs. annual

Capabilities

Features

  • Vulnerability scanning

  • Configuration auditing

  • Malware detection

  • Web application scanning

  • Cloud scanning

  • Compliance checks

  • Patch auditing

  • Pre-built policies

  • ServiceNow

    Integration with ServiceNow

  • Splunk

    Integration with Splunk

  • JIRA

    Integration with JIRA

  • AWS

    Integration with AWS

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

What is the cheapest Nessus option?

Nessus Professional starts at $4,790 per year for a 1-year license. Multi-year commitments offer discounts, with 2-year licenses at $9,330.95 and 3-year licenses at $13,637.54.

Source
What is the difference between Nessus Professional and Expert?

Nessus Expert costs $6,790 per year for a 1-year license (compared to $4,790 for Professional) and includes enhanced capabilities. Multi-year rates are available at discounted prices.

Source
Does Nessus offer optional support or training?

Yes, Nessus offers add-on services: Advanced Support at $400/year provides 24x365 access to phone, email, community, and chat support. On-Demand Training costs $275/year for Fundamentals course access or $385/year for both Fundamentals and Advanced courses.

Source

Behind it

Who makes Nessus

Company
Tenable Inc
Based in
Columbia, Maryland, USA
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Nessus, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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