Every category where a model named Tenable Nessus for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Vulnerability management platforms	Security operations	2%	9 of 80	33%	12	criticized challenger
Penetration testing as a service	Security operations	0%	69 of 76	20%	5	under 10 labels · led by Cobalt at 44%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Tenable Nessus yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Tenable Nessus across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	1	1	0	0	2
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	2	1	3
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	1	0	1
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	1	0	1	2
Mistral Small	0	0	0	0	0
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	0	1	1	2
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	0	1	1	2
Kimi K2	0	0	0	1	1
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0	4	0	4
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0	0	0

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct3 labelsNone

Paraphrase16 labelsNone

Comparative2 labelsNone

Budget-constrained15 labels2

Scale-constrained5 labelsNone

Negative14 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative55 labels in all, every segment counted; 2 of the 2 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Choose Nessus if you can afford a commercial tool. It usually gives the best balance of cost, ease of use, and scan quality” GPT-5.4 mini · Vuln management · budget prompt · first choice

“If you only need a simple point-in-time scanner and have a small environment, Nessus Professional can be enough.” GPT-5.4 mini · Vuln management · paraphrase prompt · alternative

“If <20 assets and no IT team, Nessus Essentials.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Vuln management · budget prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Many cheap providers simply run a tool like Nessus or OpenVAS and hand you a PDF report. This is called Vulnerability Scanning, not Penetration Testing.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · PTaaS · budget prompt · hard negative

“Buying a standalone scanner (like *Tenable Nessus Professional* ...) and trying to run an enterprise program with it... Why to avoid” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Vuln management · negative prompt · hard negative

“This is explicitly a point-in-time scanner, not a vulnerability management program. It lacks remediation tracking” Kimi K2 · Vuln management · negative prompt · soft negative

“Budget starter for basic scans (unlimited IPs). Not full management.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Vuln management · paraphrase prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Tenable Nessus, over the 52 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Tenable Nessus was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

OpenVAS27 of 524Not in the top three

Qualys21 of 521Not in the top three

Intruder19 of 5215Not in the top three

Rapid7 InsightVM16 of 523Not in the top three

Tenable Vulnerability Management13 of 523Not in the top three

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management13 of 520Not in the top three

Qualys VMDR12 of 522Not in the top three

Tenable12 of 522Not in the top three

ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus11 of 523Not in the top three

Rapid78 of 520Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Tenable Nessus. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 32 of the 52 answers that named Tenable Nessus and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

axis-intelligence.com20

techrepublic.com17

upguard.com15

reddit.com13

g2.com12

riskwatch.com12

beaglesecurity.com11

expertinsights.com11

orca.security11

blueheadline.com10

132 of the 132 domain citations in answers naming Tenable Nessus came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

axis-intelligence.com/best-vulnerability-management-tools-tested20

techrepublic.com/article/top-vulnerability-management-tools16

upguard.com/blog/top-vendor-vulnerability-tools15

riskwatch.com/vulnerability-management-software12

blueheadline.com/cybersecurity/best-vulnerability-scanners-small-business10

expertinsights.com/security-operations/the-top-vulnerability-management-solutions10

orca.security/resources/blog/best-vulnerability-management-tools10

intruder.io/pricing7

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Tenable Nessus

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Tenable Nessus; a claim can dispute any of them.

Nessus 8Nessus Professional 4Nessus Essentials 1Tenable Nessus / Nessus Professional 1Tenable Nessus Essentials 1Tenable Nessus Professional 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Tenable Nessus's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Tenable Nessus, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at tenable.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.