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OpenVAS vs Nikto: catalog facts
OpenVAS	Nikto
Free The Community Edition is free and open source. Greenbone enterprise products are paid.	Free The software is free under its open-source licence. Hosting, hardware and external…
Linux, Self-hosted	macOS, Linux, Command line
Large community vulnerability feed with authenticated scanning Scheduling, reporting and tracking included rather than bolted on	It checks thousands of known-dangerous paths and server configuration issues out of the box, and runs cleanly from…
The community feed lags the paid enterprise feed Installation and feed synchronisation are involved	The scan is noisy and easily detected, and its checks are signature-based rather than intelligent.
Self-hosted	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: GPL-2.0	License: GPL-3.0
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.