Tenable Nessus Professional
Advanced Vulnerability Assessment
Tenable Nessus Professional is a vulnerability assessment solution designed for security professionals, penetration testers, consultants and organisations that need to identify and prioritise vulnerabilities across their environments. It automates vulnerability scanning and provides visibility into software flaws, missing patches, malware, misconfigurations and other security weaknesses across operating systems, devices and applications.
Nessus Professional supports unlimited assessments and unlimited IP scanning under its professional licence, with vulnerability prioritisation using EPSS, CVSS and Tenable Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR). It also provides configuration and compliance assessments, more than 450 pre-configured policies and templates, customisable reporting, scheduled scans and Live Results.
Vulnerability Scanning for Security Teams
Tenable Nessus Professional helps security teams identify vulnerabilities across networks and systems through automated assessments. Its scanning capabilities can help organisations discover weaknesses, assess configuration issues and prioritise remediation work using established vulnerability scoring and Tenable’s own risk-prioritisation approach.
Compliance and Configuration Assessment
Nessus Professional provides configuration and compliance checks that can be used to assess environments against recognised standards and best practices, including CIS benchmarks and frameworks such as PCI and NIST. Pre-built policies and templates can reduce the effort required to configure recurring assessment workflows.
Professional Vulnerability Assessment for Consultants
Nessus Professional is designed for consultants, penetration testers and security practitioners who need a portable vulnerability assessment solution for professional security work. Tenable permits Nessus Professional customers to scan third-party networks, making the product suitable for consultants conducting authorised vulnerability assessments for clients.
Tenable Nessus Professional Features
Comprehensive Vulnerability Scanning
Nessus Professional automates vulnerability assessments to identify security weaknesses including software vulnerabilities, missing patches, malware and configuration problems across a broad range of technologies.
Vulnerability Prioritisation
Use EPSS, CVSS and Tenable VPR to help identify vulnerabilities that warrant attention first. Nessus combines multiple inputs to support more focused vulnerability triage and remediation decisions.
Compliance and Configuration Checks
Assess configurations and compliance against recognised security standards and best practices using pre-configured policies and templates. Nessus Professional includes more than 450 pre-configured templates for vulnerability and configuration assessment workflows.
Customisable Reporting
Create and export vulnerability assessment reports to suit different security processes, teams and reporting requirements. Customisable reporting helps translate scan findings into information that can support remediation and security operations.
Live Results
Live Results performs an offline vulnerability assessment when plugins are updated, using scan history to identify vulnerabilities that may be present and helping security practitioners determine when further scanning is appropriate.
Portable Deployment
Deploy Nessus across a variety of supported environments, with Tenable describing the product as fully portable and suitable for deployment on a range of platforms, including Raspberry Pi.
Compare Tenable Nessus Professional Plans
Tenable Nessus Professional is sold as an annual licence, with multi-year licence options available for customers seeking longer-term coverage.
1-Year Tenable Nessus Professional Licence
Professional Vulnerability Assessment
The 1-year licence provides the full Tenable Nessus Professional product for professional vulnerability assessment, including unlimited assessments, vulnerability scanning, compliance and configuration checks, reporting and vulnerability prioritisation.
From $4,790/year
£3,542.64 | €4,146.35
- 1-year Tenable Nessus Professional licence
- Unlimited vulnerability assessments
- Unlimited IP scanning
- Vulnerability prioritisation using EPSS, CVSS and Tenable VPR
- Compliance and configuration assessments
- Customisable and exportable reports
2-Year Tenable Nessus Professional Licence
Extended Professional Vulnerability Assessment
The 2-year licence provides Tenable Nessus Professional for an extended licensing period and is offered at a lower effective annual cost than purchasing the 1-year licence twice. Tenable lists this option as a multi-year licence with savings compared with shorter-term purchasing.
From $9,330.95/year
£6,901.08 | €8,077.11
- 2-year Tenable Nessus Professional licence
- Unlimited vulnerability assessments
- Unlimited IP scanning
- Vulnerability prioritisation using EPSS, CVSS and Tenable VPR
- Compliance and configuration assessments
- Customisable and exportable reports
3-Year Tenable Nessus Professional Licence
Long-Term Professional Vulnerability Assessment
The 3-year licence provides the longest standard multi-year purchasing option shown by Tenable for Nessus Professional and offers a lower effective annual cost than purchasing three separate 1-year licences.
From $13,637.54/year
£10,086.19 | €11,805.00
- 3-year Tenable Nessus Professional licence
- Unlimited vulnerability assessments
- Unlimited IP scanning
- Vulnerability prioritisation using EPSS, CVSS and Tenable VPR
- Compliance and configuration assessments
- Customisable and exportable reports
Prices shown are indicative and may vary by country, currency, taxes, promotions and the purchase terms offered by the software provider.
Always check the provider’s purchase page for the final price and applicable terms before buying.
Questions? We have answers.
Tenable Nessus Professional is a professional vulnerability assessment solution that automates vulnerability scanning and helps security practitioners identify, prioritise and investigate security weaknesses across networks, systems, devices and applications.
Nessus Professional is designed for security professionals, consultants, penetration testers, security teams and organisations that require professional vulnerability assessment capabilities. Tenable specifically identifies consultants, penetration testers and SMBs among its intended users.
Nessus Professional can identify vulnerabilities including software flaws, missing patches, malware and misconfigurations across a range of operating systems, devices and applications.
Yes. The professional licence supports unlimited assessments and unlimited IP scanning, making it suitable for professional security teams and consultants with environments larger than the limits of Nessus Essentials.
Yes. Nessus Professional supports vulnerability prioritisation using EPSS, CVSS and Tenable VPR to help security practitioners focus remediation efforts on vulnerabilities requiring greater attention.
Yes. Nessus Professional supports compliance scanning and configuration assessment, including checks associated with standards and best practices such as PCI, CIS, FDCC and NIST.
Yes. Nessus Professional provides customisable reporting capabilities and supports exportable reports that can be adapted to different security processes and requirements.
Yes. Scan scheduling is included among the capabilities listed for Nessus Professional, allowing organisations to automate recurring vulnerability assessment activities.
Nessus Live Results performs an offline vulnerability assessment when plugins are updated and uses scan history to indicate potential vulnerabilities before a new scan is performed. Security teams can then run a scan to validate findings.
Yes. Tenable states that Nessus Professional can be used by consultants to conduct authorised vulnerability scanning of third-party networks. Its unlimited assessments, portability and custom reporting capabilities make it suitable for professional consulting work.
Nessus Professional is licensed with an annual subscription. Tenable also offers multi-year purchasing options, including 2-year and 3-year licences.
Nessus Professional provides vulnerability and compliance scanning, while Nessus Expert adds capabilities including Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) web application scanning, external attack surface scanning and Infrastructure as Code scanning.
Nessus Professional does not include the DAST web application scanning capability available with Nessus Expert. Tenable’s licensing documentation identifies DAST scanning as an Expert feature rather than a Professional feature.
Advanced Support is an optional add-on to Nessus Professional. Tenable lists 24×365 phone, email, community and chat support as part of the Advanced Support option, with defined response targets based on support priority.