comparison
Tenable Nessus vs. HostedScan
Nessus is one of the most trusted vulnerability scanners in the industry, and it powers part of what HostedScan offers. Where we differ is in how you access it: HostedScan brings Nessus together with other best-in-class scanners, at a fraction of the standalone cost, with no setup required.
Feature
Vulnerability scanners in the cloud
Powered by Greenbone, Nuclei, OWASP ZAP, and Nessus
Self-hosted only; requires download and local deployment
Import targets from different sources
Import via CSV, integrations, or API
Supports IPs, hostnames, and ranges across credentialed and uncredentialed scans
Custom dashboards and reporting
Executive reports, compliance-ready exports
Configurable reports with multiple export formats; no dashboards
Run scans on-demand or scheduled
Unlimited scans, automated scheduling
On-demand and scheduled scans with 450+ pre-built templates
Cost effective for large target counts
Flat-rate plans scale to unlimited targets
$4,790/year per scanner; costs multiply across environments
Free to try
No credit card required
Trial available; limited scope and self-hosted setup required
API access with webhooks
Full REST API and webhooks included
API available; no native webhook support
what it is
About Tenable Nessus
Nessus is a vulnerability scanner created by Renaud Deraison in 1998 as a free remote security scanner which is now managed by Tenable, Inc. While the project started out under the GPL license for all to use, Deraison turned against the open source license of Nessus in October of 2005, closing the free version of Nessus during the transition from Nessus 2 to Nessus 3. As a result, the open source community carried on by forking Nessus version 2 to what became the OpenVAS project, managed by the Greenbone.
the solution
HostedScan's Network Scanner
HostedScan uses the OpenVAS scanner for network scanning. OpenVAS contains 170,000 Network Vulnerability Tests (NVTs) and growing. HostedScan updates the feed daily to use the latest NVTs for scanning. The NVTs for OpenVAS come from two sources: the Greenbone Community Feed, and the Greenbone Enterprise Feed, which adds coverage for enterprise products and compliance benchmarks.
Our Customers
5,000+ MSPs and IT teams who move faster
Speed and power,
without the complexity
The world's leading vulnerability scanners, all in one platform.