Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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6,202 views|4,105 comparisons
89% willing to recommend
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11,521 views|8,491 comparisons
98% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 16, 2022

We performed a comparison between Rapid7 InsightVM and Tenable Nessus based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users said that both solutions were easy and straightforward to set up.

  • Features: Users of Rapid7 InsightVM noted that it was easy to use and rarely gave false positives. Reviewers of Rapid7 gave mixed reviews regarding its reporting and integrations. Some were pleased and others felt it was lacking in these areas. One reviewer noted that Rapid7 doesn’t do patching. Several Tenable Nessus users described it as the best vulnerability solution in the industry. They said it works well out of the box and does not need customization. Like Rapid7 InsightVM, Tenable Nessus is easy to use and received mixed reviews on its reporting.

  • Pricing: Most reviewers rated both solutions as on the expensive side, although one user of Tenable Nessus noted that the price doesn’t matter because if he ended up with a ransomware attack, he’d be out of business.

  • Service and Support: Most reviewers of Rapid7 InsightVM were pleased with the service. Reviewers of Tenable Nessus gave its service mixed reviews.

Comparison Results: Both solutions were considered by our users as easy to deploy but on the expensive side. Rapid7 users were happier with the service and support, but PeerSpot users ranked Tenable Nessus as number one overall at the time this comparison was written.

To learn more, read our detailed Rapid7 InsightVM vs. Tenable Nessus Report (Updated: March 2023).
771,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution scales well.""The most valuable feature for us is the different types of reporting it provides.""The product is scalable.""The solution is very user friendly and easy to manage.""NeXpose is a pretty good vulnerability scanner... There's a nice dashboard.""The most valuable feature for me is the risk calculation based on monthly effects.""The product's initial setup phase was very easy.""You can bring in and get online to do reports fairly quickly,"

More Rapid7 InsightVM Pros →

"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the support it provides for any new vulnerabilities quickly.""Ease of reviewing scores, identifying vulnerabilities, and getting information on them.""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.""The scanning capabilities are most valuable when compared to Nessus.""Quick assessments, compliance scores, and results are provided without having to do agents.""Tenable Nessus is one of the best vulnerability assessment tools, that I know.""Scanners and reports using CIS templates ("de-facto" standard, easy to fix and to locate correction tips at documentation), tests against cloud providers, database profiles, several types of telecom devices, and others highly customizable scans.""The most valuable feature is the installation of Tenable which is incredibly easy."

More Tenable Nessus Pros →

Cons
"All products have room for increased security and Rapid7 InsightVM is no exception.""There is a significant learning curve, that non-technical individuals, especially those not specialized in computer science or the information security industry, might face.""Some of our customers want to be completely cloud based, and Rapid7 doesn't offer this as an option.""There are certain limitations because of the product being used on a hybrid model. Rapid7 InsightVM doesn't offer a solution purely in the cloud.""Within InsightVM, there is no feature to assign a ticket. If we can have more API calls, we can do that from InsightVM.""Patch management is the only missing feature I can think of. Rapid7 detects vulnerabilities, but it should also help you manage patches.""I would say that it improved our visibility, but it left things open.""It would be nice to have an additional feature that would provide reports on who has logged onto the console or who did what on the console."

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"To be honest, I haven't used it much to tell you that these are the things that should be improved. But I believe the UI should be enhanced somewhat. For example, there are two ways to find a report, and people are frequently confused as to which is the correct method for locating a full report. Sometimes they go in the opposite direction, so this is an area that may be improved.""Tenable Nessus could improve the reporting.""We'd like to see the solution embrace more user-friendliness.""The price could be reduced.""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.""The reports should be improved in Tenable Nessus. For example, when you are auditing compliance with CIS standards. It provides very poor reports.""The scalability of Tenable Nessus is good. However, it could be more flexible.""We have had some false positives in the past, which we hope can improve in the future."

More Tenable Nessus Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The price of the solution is less than the competitors."
  • "I do not have experience with the pricing of the solution."
  • "This solution is expensive, but it's fine for us as we have an open budget for security solutions. Protection and having the system secured is more important."
  • "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."
  • "Our licensing costs are somewhere around $40,000 annually. There are no additional fees."
  • "The licensing is asset-based and very straightforward."
  • "Its price is too high. My only concern or issue with Rapid7 is its pricing."
  • "Comparing the price with the value that we receive, I am not happy with it."
  • More Rapid7 InsightVM Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The pricing is much more manageable versus other products."
  • "The price of Tenable Nessus is much more competitive versus other solutions on the market."
  • "I think the price is fairly affordable. It provides a license that is fair."
  • "Nowadays, your vulnerability applications are going to be kind of pricey because lots of them, including Rapid7, are based upon a base price, but then they add in the nodes. That's where they get you. If you're a big network, obviously, you need to scan everything. Therefore, it's going to be costly. The risk and insurance money associated with having ransomware on my networks is going to cost me more money, time, and marketing than the price of the tool. That's why I'm speaking only as an information security officer to security operations. This is the tool that is there in my toolbox to say whether we vulnerable or not. At this point, I don't care about how much it costs my company to have it because if I wasn't able to report it and we got ransomware, then who cares? I'm probably going to be out of business because it happened. That's why I don't care about the price. I have it, and I could use it effectively and do my report. At the end of the day, even if we get ransomware, as long as I reported it, followed my protocol, and put in the change, irrespective of whether it was ignored or denied, I did my job."
  • "We pay approximately $2,500 on a yearly basis."
  • "We have a subscription, the licensing fees are paid yearly, and I am using the latest version."
  • "We incurred a single cost for a perpetual license, although I cannot comment on the price as this is above my management level."
  • "The price is reasonable."
  • More Tenable Nessus Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Answers from the Community
    Netanya Carmi
    Max Iversen - PeerSpot reviewerMax Iversen
    User

    InsightVM - better functions on granting users different access to different asset groups. 


    It fits better for our company and is slightly cheaper.

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
    Top Answer:The product is cheaper than the other similar tools available in the market.
    Top Answer: Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment solution that is both easy to deploy and easy to manage. The design of the program is such that if a company should desire to handle the installation… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    6,202
    Comparisons
    4,105
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    376
    Rating
    8.2
    3rd
    Views
    11,521
    Comparisons
    8,491
    Reviews
    29
    Average Words per Review
    429
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    InsightVM, NeXpose
    Learn More
    Overview

    Rapid7 InsightVM is a comprehensive vulnerability management platform that protects your systems from attackers and is easy to scale. The solution provides easy access to vulnerability management, application security, detection and response, external threat intelligence, orchestration and automation, and more. Rapid7 InsightVM is ideal for security, IT, and DevOps teams, helping them reduce risk by enabling them to detect and respond to attacks quickly.

    Rapid7 InsightVM Features

    Rapid7 InsightVM has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Automated containment: With this feature, you can decrease exposure from vulnerabilities by automatically implementing temporary (or permanent) compensating controls via your network access control (NAC) systems, firewalls, and endpoint detection and response tools.
    • Policy assessment: Rapid7 InsightVM offers pre-built scan templates for common compliance requirements. The solution helps you take clear, actionable steps to compliance once you have assessed your risk posture. In addition, Rapid7 InsightVM’s Custom Policy Builder allows you to modify existing benchmarks or create new policies from scratch.
    • REST API: Rapid7 InsightVM REST API is easy to use and was built to easily automate virtually any aspect of vulnerability management, from data collection to risk analysis.
    • Live dashboards: Rapid7 InsightVM includes dashboards that are live and interactive by nature. The live dashboards enable you to create custom cards and full dashboards for anyone in your organization and allow you to track progress of your security program.
    • Automation-assisted patching: Rapid7 InsightVM’s automation-assisted patching gives you the autonomy to make key decisions in your patching process, such as your approval to apply certain patches to certain vulnerabilities.
    • Real risk prioritization: Rapid7 InsightVM makes it simple to know which vulnerabilities need to be prioritized and where your riskiest assets lie.
    • Goals and SLA’s: This feature enables you to make and track progress toward your goals and service level agreements (SLAs) at an appropriate pace.

    Rapid7 InsightVM Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing Rapid7 InsightVM. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Attack surface monitoring for maintained visibility: By leveraging attack surface monitoring with Project Sonar (a Rapid7 research project that regularly scans the internet to gain insights into global exposure to common vulnerabilities), you can gain more control of all of your external-facing assets, both known and unknown.
    • Container security: Rapid7 InsightVM integrates with your CI/CD tools, public container repositories, and private repositories to assess container images for vulnerabilities during the build process even before they are deployed.
    • Lightweight endpoint agent: Rapid7 InsightVM unifies data so you only need to install a single agent for continuous vulnerability assessment, incident detection, and log data collection.
    • Easily assign and track remediation duties: Using Rapid7 InsightVM, IT and security teams can assign as well as track remediation duties without having to deal with remediation reports, complex spreadsheets, or back-and-forth email tags.
    • Integration with cloud services and virtual infrastructure: Rapid7 InsightVM provides full visibility into risk across your physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructure.
    • Integrated threat feeds: Rapid7 InsightVM is designed with integrated threat feeds, giving you a dynamic view that shows you which threats are most relevant to your environment, enabling you to better protect against current, impending threats so you can react quickly to critical vulnerabilities.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Rapid7 InsightVM solution.

    An owner at a tech services company says, "I liked the dashboard on it. I could customize my dashboard with different widgets and different heat maps."

    PeerSpot user Kimeang S., Technical Consultant at Yip Intsoi, mentions, "The most important aspect of the solution is that it rarely gives false positives, especially compared to other products. It provides very clear reports for our IT teams to look at."

    A Director of Information Technology at a government explains, "The main functionality of identifying item endpoints that weren't properly patched or had vulnerabilities is the solution's most valuable feature."

    Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability management solution that aims to empower organizations to be aware of threats that both they and their customers face. It is the most deployed scanner in the vulnerability management industry. Organizations that use this product have access to the largest continuously updated global library of vulnerability and configuration checks. They can stay ahead of threats that Tenable Nessus’s competitors may be unable to spot. Additionally, Tenable Nessus supports a greater number of technologies than its competitors.

    Tenable Nessus Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by deploying Tenable Nessus include:

    • Ease of use. Tenable Nessus is designed with security administrators in mind. It is built so that users can manipulate it intuitively without having to undergo special systems training. Users can create security policies with the greatest level of ease and can initiate scans of their entire networks with only a few clicks.
    • Support and resources. Tenable Nessus has both a support system of clarification resources and technical support for users to rely on. The solution has a resource center that contains guides and tips that can clarify things that confuse users and can aid them in gaining the maximum level of value. Additionally, users can reach out to Tenable Nessus’s technical support team, which is available around the clock and is reachable via a number of methods. This makes it simple for users to get help if they need it.
    • Reduction of threat vectors. Tenable Nessus provides users with the ability to reduce the number of potential threat vectors that a hacker can exploit. It enables users to find where the vulnerabilities in their networks are so their security won’t be compromised. They can then quickly address those weak points and head off issues before any have the chance to arise.

    Tenable Nessus Features

    • Report customization. Tenable Nessus enables users to customize the security reports that their system produces. They are able to set Tenable Nessus to generate reports that contain the information that is most relevant to their business objectives. Users can also utilize these report customization capabilities to customize the formats of their reports.
    • Vulnerability triage capability. Included in the Tenable Nessus security suite is a feature that enables users to conduct a triage of their vulnerabilities. The solution can apply one of five ratings to vulnerabilities that it detects. This makes it possible for organizations to work on addressing issues by order of severity.
    • Scaling. Tenable Nessus can scale to meet an organization’s needs by migrating the network that it is connected to, to other Tenable solutions. Users can scale up their systems as their security demands increase. It is capable of reaching hundreds of thousands of systems.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Tenable Nessus is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its ease of use and its vulnerability scanning feature.

    Rallis F., the principal security architect at a technology vendor, writes, “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.”

    Sandip D., a cyber security expert at Birlasoft India Ltd, writes, “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.”

    Sample Customers
    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
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Energy/Utilities Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization34%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Security Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization35%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Government7%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business47%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise44%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business40%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise43%
    Large Enterprise41%
    Buyer's Guide
    Rapid7 InsightVM vs. Tenable Nessus
    March 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 InsightVM vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
    771,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Rapid7 InsightVM is ranked 4th in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management with 55 reviews while Tenable Nessus is ranked 3rd in Vulnerability Management with 75 reviews. Rapid7 InsightVM is rated 8.0, while Tenable Nessus is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Rapid7 InsightVM writes "You can scan a network, and receive recommendations to address vulnerabilities with the click of a button". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tenable Nessus writes "Unlimited assets for one price and quick, agentless results". Rapid7 InsightVM is most compared with Qualys VMDR, Tenable Security Center, Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, Rapid7 InsightIDR and Wiz, whereas Tenable Nessus is most compared with Qualys VMDR, Tenable Security Center, Tenable Vulnerability Management, Pentera and Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management. See our Rapid7 InsightVM vs. Tenable Nessus report.

    We monitor all Risk-Based Vulnerability Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.