Tools


Nessus

Nessus is a commercial vulnerability scanner developed by Tenable. It’s known for its regularly updated plugin feed, polished interface, and strong support for compliance checks. Nessus is popular in enterprise environments because of its reliability, speed, and the depth of vulnerability coverage. While it offers a free version (Nessus Essentials) with limited targets, the full version requires a paid license. It’s often used for internal scans, web application assessments, and audit-based evaluations.

Nessus is accessible on nessus.

OpenVAS

OpenVAS, on the other hand, is a fully open-source alternative maintained by the Greenbone Community. It’s part of the Greenbone Vulnerability Management (GVM) suite. OpenVAS is a solid choice for those looking to integrate scanning into custom workflows without vendor lock-in. Though it can be slower and less intuitive out of the box compared to Nessus, it offers great flexibility and a community-driven plugin ecosystem.