We performed a comparison between Tenable Nessus and Acunetix based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison results: Based on the parameters we compared, Tenable Nessus comes out ahead of Acunetix. Even though both solutions offer beneficial vulnerability scanning and a proactive approach, Acunetix’s two-year licensing plan is less flexible than that of its competitor, and its need for manual resolution of false positives leaves room for improvement.
"Our developers can run the attacks directly from their environments, desktops."
"The tool's most valuable feature is scan configurations. We use it for external physical applications. The scanning time depends on the application's code."
"The most important feature is that it's a web-based graphical user interface. That is a great addition. Also, the ability to schedule scans is great."
"The solution is highly stable."
"Picks up weaknesses in our app setups."
"The vulnerability scanning option for analyzing the security loopholes on the websites is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"I haven't seen reporting of that level in any other tool."
"The automated approach to these repetitive discovery attempts would take days to do manually and therefore it helps reduce the time needed to do an assessment."
"I like its ease of use. It has the script that is pre-built in it, and you just got to know which ones you're looking for."
"It gives you an unlimited IP scan."
"Out of the box, the product works well for us, so it's not a tool that we need to customize very much."
"Quick assessments, compliance scores, and results are provided without having to do agents."
"The most valuable feature is how it scanned and detected through its database to let us know exactly what fixes we needed to put in place for the vulnerabilities. It detects and it also gives you the way to fix it."
"The solution is easy to understand for users because instructions are included on the platform."
"It also has an executive report where you don't have to provide the client all the detail for them to sift though. But if they wish to dig through the detail they can."
"Among the most valuable features are scanning for vulnerabilities and the reporting. The reporting templates are okay. I like that I can see all the hosts with different vulnerabilities."
"Tools that would allow us to work more efficiently with the mobile environment, with Android and iOS."
"There's a clear need for a reduction in pricing to make the service more accessible."
"Currently only supports web scanning."
"The jargon used makes it difficult for project managers to understand the issues, and the technical explanations used make it difficult for developers to understand issues. These things should be simplified much more. That would be very helpful for us when explaining to them what needs to be fixed. The report output needs to be simplified."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"The solution can be improved by adding the ability to scan subdomains automatically, and by providing reports that can be exported to external databases to share with other solutions."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the way the licensing model is currently is not very convenient for us because initially, when we bought it, the licensing model was very flexible, but now it restricts us."
"Acunetix needs to be dynamic with JavaScript code, unlike Netsparker which can scan complex agents."
"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."
"Online learning could be a bit better."
"Tenable Nessus is not feasible for a large company."
"Some things in the user interface could be better. The user interface could allow more adjustments to plugins. The price could also be better."
"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 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 price and scalability of the solution could improve."
"Tenable Nessus application device assessment is one of the top tools. However, in the application security assessment, there are other tools that provide better, and more accurate findings."
Acunetix is ranked 13th in Vulnerability Management with 26 reviews while Tenable Nessus is ranked 3rd in Vulnerability Management with 75 reviews. Acunetix is rated 7.6, while Tenable Nessus is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Acunetix writes "Fantastic reporting features hindered by slow scanning ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tenable Nessus writes "Unlimited assets for one price and quick, agentless results". Acunetix is most compared with OWASP Zap, Tenable.io Web Application Scanning, PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional, Fortify WebInspect and Qualys Web Application Scanning, whereas Tenable Nessus is most compared with Qualys VMDR, Rapid7 InsightVM, Tenable Security Center, Tenable Vulnerability Management and Snyk. See our Acunetix vs. Tenable Nessus report.
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