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Rapid7 Metasploit vs The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.3
Rapid7 Metasploit efficiently identifies vulnerabilities and saves costs but is average for experienced users or those using Qualys/Nessus.
Sentiment score
3.6
NodeZero Platform cuts pen testing costs, enhances efficiency, reduces remediation time, and uncovers hidden network issues for revenue opportunities.
Metasploit has helped save time, especially with testing websites or VIPD projects.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
The ROI can be very rapid for organizations using vulnerability assessment for the first time.
Senior Security Consultant at ITSEC Asia
A reduction in remediation time has been seen because it is finding things before they happen.
Director of Enterprise Security at a energy/utilities company with 51-200 employees
Being able to find them because there have been no eyes on that particular section so far ever, and fixing those potentially prevented those companies from getting breached.
IT Security Consultant at Systemhaus for you GmbH
So far, I have seen a return on investment with The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai, as we managed to save a lot of time and effort with this because this is an autonomous tool, and our manual effort is significantly reduced because of a product of this type.
Senior Manager | Manager Security Services at RISK ASSOCIATES
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.9
Rapid7 Metasploit support has mixed reviews, with helpful resources but varying response times and effectiveness compared to Cisco.
Sentiment score
7.0
NodeZero Platform's customer service is highly rated for responsiveness and expertise, despite occasional licensing challenges and bandwidth delays.
Rapid7 sometimes struggles with queries from non-security people, whereas Tenable is more patient.
Senior Security Consultant at ITSEC Asia
The customer support is excellent
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Overall, when it comes to The NodeZero Platform's tech support, you can reach them via a chat message on their website, and they respond almost immediately.
Director of IT Security at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Previously, with time-sensitive engagements, I would worry about resolving issues before deadlines. That concern has diminished as they've become more responsive and require less escalation to engineering.
Principal Consultant at JTI Cybersecurity
The vast majority of times they are able to resolve the exact questions my team has on the first attempt, which is really good for customer or technical support.
Chief Information Officer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.1
Rapid7 Metasploit's scalability opinions vary, some see limitations, others appreciate flexibility; performance varies by project and infrastructure.
Sentiment score
7.2
The NodeZero Platform is scalable, supports Docker, and efficiently handles varied network assets, enhancing performance for diverse environments.
Metasploit can handle big projects and is already prepared for them.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
Rapid7 Metasploit is highly scalable.
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Rapid7 Metasploit has limited scalability based on my experience, as the customer receives the full functionality of the product with the license.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
We have conducted pen tests in environments with hundreds of thousands of IP addresses without any scalability issues.
CEO at cybovate
We currently scan approximately 1,500-2,000 assets and haven't encountered any scaling or throughput issues.
Information Security Manager at a non-profit with 51-200 employees
The platform offers various insider threats, segmentation tests, phishing tests, and PCI DSS tests.
Head Dig IT Al And Response/ Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Rapid7 Metasploit's stability is highly praised, with recent versions improving and rated 8-9/10, despite occasional network issues.
Sentiment score
8.2
NodeZero Platform is stable and reliable, with minor issues easily fixed; excellent for live environments without compromising systems.
I have never faced any technical issues or downtimes.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
I find Metasploit to be very stable, and I would rate its stability as a nine out of ten.
Senior Security Consultant at ITSEC Asia
We have not encountered any issues on the platform regarding accessibility, performance, or stability.
CEO at cybovate
Regarding stability, it has never crashed, and there has not been any lagging from deployment or running.
Director of Enterprise Security at a energy/utilities company with 51-200 employees
I would rate the stability of The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai as a ten.
Senior Manager | Manager Security Services at RISK ASSOCIATES
 

Room For Improvement

Rapid7 Metasploit needs faster updates, improved tools integration, better UI, enhanced features, and updated evasion capabilities for modern defenses.
NodeZero Platform needs enhancements in vulnerability tools, scalability, reporting, and onboarding for improved user experience and integration.
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.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
The database is not always updated with the latest vulnerabilities or zero-day exploits.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
The time taken to fetch reports based on the number of events can be extensive.
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
This service reveals which credentials and email addresses are available on the deep web, as well as which domains have been set up using typo-squatting techniques.
Information Security Manager at a non-profit with 51-200 employees
The one thing that is very much asked from us as a service provider is DAST testing, so when a company is building a software, they could see their current security status while they are building the application.
Offensive Security Analyst at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
One of the areas where improvement is needed is in the visibility and reporting for large enterprises.
CEO at cybovate
 

Setup Cost

Rapid7 Metasploit's pricing ranges from free to $20,000, with varied opinions on its affordability compared to competitors.
Enterprise buyers find NodeZero Platform pricing competitive, cost-efficient, and flexible with IP-based licensing and low setup costs.
The cost is approximately $15 per device.
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Metasploit is cheaper than Nessus and offers a more robust community edition that provides a good experience for studying Metasploit.
Senior Security Consultant at ITSEC Asia
After that, they usually purchase the commercial part of the solution due to its deep integration with InsightVM.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
The pricing is much more affordable than traditional penetration tests.
Manager, Information Technology at a performing arts with 11-50 employees
It's a bit cheaper than manual penetration testing because manual testing typically allows you to scan only a few subnets.
Works at a hospitality company with 201-500 employees
Usually, manual penetration test scans take considerable time and money.
Security Engineer at Herjavec Group
 

Valuable Features

Rapid7 Metasploit excels in penetration testing with strong integration, comprehensive features, and efficient management in a unified platform.
NodeZero Platform offers automated tests, remediation guidance, and autonomous operation for streamlined, cost-effective vulnerability management with comprehensive reporting.
Rapid7 offers comprehensive features within one platform, eliminating the need to integrate multiple tools to see all alerts in one place.
Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
InsightVM searches for potential threats and vulnerabilities of the infrastructure, and after that, Rapid7 Metasploit validates whether we can break the system using this vulnerability or threat, serving as a validator component of the InsightVM solution.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
The most valuable features of Metasploit include its powerful capabilities for exploitation and scanning.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
When a new vulnerability, such as a zero-day exploit, is identified, they review your previous scans to determine if you might be vulnerable to it, and they proactively notify you.
Director of IT Security at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The detailed reports not only list the vulnerabilities that matter, but they also include direct links to patches.
Information Security Manager at a non-profit with 51-200 employees
The NodeZero Platform's real attack capabilities help in identifying vulnerabilities on our on-prem systems because it provides actual vulnerabilities by attacking our systems.
Chief Information Security Officer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Rapid7 Metasploit
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
The NodeZero Platform by Ho...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (11th), Penetration Testing Services (1st), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (1st), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Rapid7 Metasploit is 1.9%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai is 1.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai1.5%
Rapid7 Metasploit1.9%
Other96.6%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1247523 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Brent Hamlin - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Manager at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees
Continuous threat scanning has improved remediation time and strengthened executive reporting
The best features that The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai offers include the automated scans, which are great to use; you set it, scope it, and let it go, which works really well. The executive reporting feature is impactful for me as a manager, providing a strong foundation to give quarterly and yearly reports to our executives and board to see the state of our infrastructure from a security standpoint. The level of detail and clarity in the executive reports from The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai absolutely helps me communicate effectively with leadership. They are detailed enough for me to extract the necessary information tailored for the executives and to provide a broader perspective on our mitigation efforts or accepted risk stance and where additional controls exist. The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai has positively impacted my organization by giving us a better continuous picture of our security posture, what's exploitable, and what can be used against the organization. It allows us to run scans whenever needed, unlike a single third-party system that only provides a snapshot in time; our processes must be ongoing as the security landscape is dynamic. NodeZero's endpoint security effectiveness feature impacts my understanding of potential security threats by providing a clear picture of both the external and internal landscapes within my organization, enabling me to prioritize and adjust as needed for vulnerabilities such as WordPress plugin issues or user enumerations and software code version assessments. I have built The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai into our weekly and monthly workflows for security CI/CD, and we scan our externally accessible assets every week to address anything quickly if it comes up. That includes our firewalls, websites, and anything that is an external web server, which we scan weekly, while the monthly scans are for internal systems that feed our security CI/CD pipeline, enabling us to action across and prioritize any vulnerabilities caught by The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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 that, they usually purchase the commercial part of the solution due to its deep...
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 the same attack you provide today will go in different ways another day. I prefe...
What is your primary use case for Rapid7 Metasploit?
I use Rapid7 Metasploit as a distributor, as an integrator, and as a user. I use Rapid7 Metasploit in my company internally as a part of providing internal audit.
What needs improvement with Horizon3.ai?
The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai could be improved by reducing the elapsed time from identifying a zero-day vulnerability from their QA environment to their production environment.
What is your primary use case for Horizon3.ai?
My main use case for The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai includes pen testing and vulnerability management. I use The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai to run weekly external and internal scans to ...
What advice do you have for others considering Horizon3.ai?
My advice to others looking into using The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai is to do yourself a favor and see what the product will find. The platform's real attack capabilities have helped in iden...
 

Also Known As

Metasploit
Horizon3.ai
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Government agencies, Defense Industrial Base organizations, and enterprises in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and criticalinfrastructure rely on NodeZero to meet rigorous security and compliance requirements with continuous, scheduled, and on-demand testing.
Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 Metasploit vs. The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.