Rapid7 Metasploit vs Tenable Nessus comparison

Rapid7 and Tenable are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Rapid7 is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.4, while Tenable is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6. Rapid7 holds a 1.3% mindshare in VM, compared to Tenable’s 5.2% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Rapid7 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Tenable users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Rapid7 Metasploit and Tenable Nessus compete in the cybersecurity domain. Tenable Nessus often has the upper hand due to its robust feature set, making it a worthwhile investment despite Rapid7 Metasploit's cost-effectiveness and support.

Features: Rapid7 Metasploit offers advanced penetration testing capabilities, providing a wide range of exploits, custom attack simulations, and a detailed exploit database. Tenable Nessus focuses on comprehensive vulnerability scanning, with features like detailed patch management, configuration auditing, and compliance checks.

Room for Improvement: Rapid7 Metasploit could enhance its reporting capabilities, improve user interface intuitiveness, and offer more automation options. Tenable Nessus might work on reducing false positives, integrating better with third-party tools, and enhancing scalability for larger environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Rapid7 Metasploit provides flexible deployment options and responsive support for troubleshooting. Tenable Nessus ensures a straightforward deployment process with detailed documentation and robust customer service, facilitating smooth integration.

Pricing and ROI: Rapid7 Metasploit is known for competitive pricing and promises strong ROI through its extensive toolset. Tenable Nessus, while having a higher initial cost, delivers significant ROI by enhancing security posture and risk management.

To learn more, read our detailed Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Nessus Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Nessus

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 Metasploit is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 5.2%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Tenable Nessus	5.2%
Zafran Security	1.1%
Rapid7 Metasploit	1.3%
Other	92.4%

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Reviewer6233

Works at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal

While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even greater value. One key area for enhancement is the searching capabilities within its vulnerabilities module. By incorporating the ability to create Boolean searches, users would gain the ability to apply more complex filters and customize their search criteria. This would greatly enhance the precision and efficiency with which security teams can identify and prioritize vulnerabilities. Having such tailored search capabilities would save time and resources by narrowing down vast lists of vulnerabilities to those that meet specific parameters relevant to our unique risk environment. Additionally, integrating more robust reporting and visualization tools would be advantageous. Enhanced dashboards that offer customizable visual representations of risk configurations and threat landscapes would facilitate better communication with stakeholders, making it easier to explain vulnerabilities and the rationale behind certain security measures. This would also aid in demonstrating the improvements and value derived from existing security investments to leadership and non-technical team members.

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reviewer1247523

Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Extensive exploit database and seamless integration enhance penetration testing capabilities

The automated approach in the audits or in the hacking testing with Rapid7 Metasploit could be improved because even the same attack you provide today will go in different ways another day. I prefer when the auditor or pen-tester provides the attack in a non-automated mode. For some, it might be a valuable option, but I'm not sure it's valuable for us, as after the attack has been provided, we should release a report detailing how it transpired and what the customer should improve to block this way of attack. If the attack was provided in an automated mode, you cannot receive sufficient information that helps with this final report for the customer. While you can check the vulnerability, and the system will tell you there is no vulnerability, usually, a human can change one, two, or three parameters and using the same technique and the same scripts can break the system. Rapid7 Metasploit could be improved in areas concerning the experience with finding particular scripts pre-installed in the solution. Customers, administrators, and pen-testers spend considerable time trying to locate the specific component they need by the name of the technique or the name of the attack, so any improvements in making it easier to find those predefined components by name or timeframe would be beneficial. Search filters could be a correct improvement.

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MohammedJaffir

Founder at Cipheroot

Has enabled me to reduce false positives and perform deep credential auditing with seamless integrations

I mostly use the configuration audit feature for the audit configuration as a scan policy, and I will use it for credential audit, which helps me scan credentials access such as local administrator or root access, performing a deeper and more accurate check of local configuration settings and file systems, making it a highly recommended feature. Regarding integration capabilities, we can integrate Tenable Nessus with SIM tools such as Splunk, IBM QRadar, and Azure Sentinel, as well as with ticketing systems such as ServiceNow, Jira, and Slack. There is no complexity as it is very easy to integrate everything. In terms of the reporting feature, while vulnerability scanning can throw some false positives, Tenable Nessus has very few, achieving a reduction of 75% to 80% false positives with manual analysis needed. We can generate standard Nessus reports that typically include host summaries and vulnerabilities by host and plugin, alongside solutions and remediation recommendations. The main benefits I get from Tenable Nessus are complete asset inventory and comprehensive attack surface management, allowing us to prioritize vulnerabilities based on risk, focusing on true risk and threat path analysis.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."

"With Zafran Security, it integrates with your security controls, allowing you to take that risk score and reduce it based on the controls in place or increase the risk based on different factors, such as if the issue is internet reachable or if there's an exploit in the wild."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"The option to generate phishing emails has proven to be very valuable in understanding the behavior of users."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."

"The greatest advantage of Rapid7 Metasploit is that it is the only system that can directly exploit vulnerabilities on the Metasploit platform."

"The solution is open source and has many small targetted penetration tests that have been written by many people that are useful. You can choose different subjects for the test, such as Oracle databases or Apache servers."

"Rapid7 offers comprehensive features within one platform, eliminating the need to integrate multiple tools to see all alerts in one place."

"It is scalable. It's in line with our needs."

"I use Rapid7 Metasploit for payload generation and Post-Exploitation."

More Rapid7 Metasploit pros

"The automatic scanner and scheduler are pretty cool."

"It provides multiple recommendations towards the remedy of vulnerabilities."

"It also has an executive report where you don't have to provide the client all the detail for them to sift though. But if they wish to dig through the detail they can."

"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the self-updating engine."

"We have done code scanning for a long period because as a company, we do DevOps as part of our development life cycle."

"The stability is very good."

"The results are not that bad, but the key selling point is that it is an affordable tool set."

"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is website scanning."

More Tenable Nessus pros

Cons

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."

"At the time I was using it, the graphical user interface needed some improvements."

"The initial setup was a bit "tweaky" for the open-source version."

"Support is another area where improvement is needed, particularly for assisting non-security users."

"The reporting feature needs improvement. The time taken to fetch reports based on the number of events can be extensive, unlike Tenable, which is more user-friendly and faster."

"There are numerous outdated exploits in their database that should be updated."

"It is necessary to add some training materials and a tutorial for beginners."

"While Metasploit excels in vulnerability assessment, it could improve in vulnerability management."

"Advanced Infrastructure should be implemented in the next release for better orchestration."

More Rapid7 Metasploit cons

"The integration part is not good because five years ago, Tenable Nessus had more integration capability. After that, Tenable changed their policies and strategy."

"The reporting could be improved. The reporting in Rapid7 is much better."

"Tenable Nessus could improve the price."

"It wasn't very clear how the scripts are running the scans. There's information about the script but it's not straightforward. The script information for each of the plugins should be available, but it doesn't give us straightforward direct information about how it was executed. That needs to be more clear."

"The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly."

"The inventory management function in this solution needs improvement."

"The pricing point has increased significantly in recent years. The product's pricing has roughly tripled within the last couple of years, making us reconsider renewing the license for the scanner."

"We'd like to see the solution embrace more user-friendliness."

More Tenable Nessus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It is a reasonably priced solution. I would rate it from five out of ten."

"Rapid7 Metasploit is an open-source solution."

"The pricing structure involves a one-time purchase cost of approximately twenty thousand dollars or euros for all customers."

"I have used the free version of Rapid7 Metasploit."

"The cost is approximately $15 per device."

"I use the open-source version of this product. Pricing is not relevant."

"We pay monthly. The pricing is reasonable."

"The great advantage with Rapid7 Metasploit, of course, is that it's free."

More Rapid7 Metasploit pricing and cost advice

"While Tenable Nessus is a good enterprise solution, the high price would likely make it prohibitive to smaller organizations."

"I rate the product's price seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."

"When comparing the price of Tenable Nessus to other similar solutions, such as Acunetix, Tenable Nessus is not as expensive. It is averagely priced in the market. We pay for the solution annually."

"Tenable Nessus is affordable."

"We incurred a single cost for a perpetual license, although I cannot comment on the price as this is above my management level."

"The price is okay. I would give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."

"The cost is around $4,300 per year. Use is unlimited. You don't pay more if you want to use it for another IP."

"The is a free version of Tenable Nessus available."

More Tenable Nessus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	11

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	39
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	35

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...

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What do you like most about Rapid7 Metasploit?

I use Rapid7 Metasploit for payload generation and Post-Exploitation.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 Metasploit?

The pricing of Rapid7 Metasploit is quite affordable. It has a free version that many customers start with, and after...

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What needs improvement with Rapid7 Metasploit?

The automated approach in the audits or in the hacking testing with Rapid7 Metasploit could be improved because even ...

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How would you choose between Rapid7 InsightVM and Tenable Nessus?

You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. Yo...

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What's the difference between Tenable Nessus and Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?

Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment solution that is both easy to deploy and easy to manage. The design of ...

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What do you like most about Tenable Nessus?

We have around 500 virtual machines. Therefore, we conduct monthly scans and open tickets for our developers to addre...

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Compared 6% of the time

Acunetix vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon Inspector vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 6% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 7% of the time

Tenable Security Center vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 6% of the time

Acunetix vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

January 2026

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 Metasploit

January 2026

Download Rapid7 Metasploit product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Nessus

January 2026

Download Tenable Nessus product report

Also Known As

No data available

Metasploit

No data available

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Attackers are always developing new exploits and attack methods—Metasploit penetration testing software helps you use their own weapons against them. Utilizing an ever-growing database of exploits, you can safely simulate real-world attacks on your network to train your security team to spot and stop the real thing.

Rapid7

Tenable Nessus provides an efficient vulnerability management system with swift deployment and comprehensive scanning capabilities, making it an ideal choice for organizations seeking to enhance their security posture through effective threat detection and mitigation strategies.

Renowned for its top-tier vulnerability detection, Tenable Nessus offers a robust platform that integrates effortlessly across systems, enhancing threat management through automation, real-time monitoring, and customizable scanning options. Its broad asset coverage, including network devices and applications, coupled with ease of deployment, positions it as a go-to option for risk assessment and compliance. Organizations value its extensive reporting features and database, although they suggest enhancements in reporting formats and false positive detection. A more intuitive interface, improved cloud support, and competitive pricing models are sought after to cater to evolving enterprise needs.

What are the key features of Tenable Nessus?

Comprehensive Vulnerability Detection: Identifies security gaps across systems and platforms.
Remedy Recommendations: Provides actionable insights for vulnerability fixes.
Predictive Prioritization: Helps in focusing on critical vulnerabilities first.
Seamless Integration: Compatible with diverse platforms for cohesive threat management.
Automation Capabilities: Streamlines routine scans and reports.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Fast Setup: Quick deployment that saves time and resources.
Cost-Effective: Affordable pricing supports budget-conscious cyber strategies.
Real-Time Monitoring: Offers continuous oversight of system health.
Extensive Reports: Detailed insights enhance decision-making processes.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and tech, Tenable Nessus is implemented for scanning internal and external networks, identifying risks, and ensuring data protection compliance. Organizations conduct regular scans to detect security vulnerabilities in servers and databases, leveraging its capabilities to strengthen their security frameworks while managing cloud infrastructures and enterprise networks efficiently.

Tenable

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

City of Corpus Christi, Diebold, Lumenate, Nebraska Public Power District, Prairie North Regional Health, Apptio, Automation Direct, Bob's Stores, Cardinal Innovations Healthcare Solutions, Carnegie Mellon University

Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Nessus

December 2025

Free Report: Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Nessus

Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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