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Acunetix vs Rapid7 Metasploit comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
18th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
Acunetix
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (12th), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), DevSecOps (6th)
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
 

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 Acunetix is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 Metasploit is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zafran Security1.1%
Acunetix1.2%
Rapid7 Metasploit1.3%
Other96.4%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Reviewer6233 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Rahul Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer - Penetration Tester at a government with 10,001+ employees
Identifies vulnerabilities across bulk web applications but needs better support and cleaner reports
The best feature Acunetix offers is the centralized dashboard and the quality of reports it generates, which includes various options for selecting reports and developer options for directly sharing the reports with developers. The centralized dashboard of Acunetix gives visibility into the security aspects of mass applications; for instance, with more than 200 applications, it provides a valuable overview of findings and necessary fixes, along with a high-level summary that helps us achieve compliance through monthly and sometimes weekly scanning. In terms of reporting, Acunetix is excellent because it can generate different types of reports, such as an executive summary report, detailed reports, and developer reports that can be shared directly with developers. Acunetix positively impacts my organization by helping identify outdated libraries and applications, including legacy applications vulnerable to old attacks based on OWASP Top 10, thus aiding in compliance checks for PCI DSS and OWASP. Acunetix provides a centralized report with compliance-related aspects and a vulnerability timeline, effectively helping reduce vulnerabilities and save time.
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.

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."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"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."
"By helping me patch vulnerabilities, Acunetix has led to measurable outcomes like time saved and fewer incidents."
"The tool's most valuable feature is scan configurations. We use it for external physical applications. The scanning time depends on the application's code."
"For us, the most valuable aspect of the solution is the log-sequence feature."
"Overall, it's a very good tool and a very good engine."
"Acunetix is the best service in the world. It is easy to manage. It gives a lot of information to the users to see and identify problems in their site or applications. It works very well."
"It's very user-friendly for the testing teams. It's very easy for them to understand things and to fix vulnerabilities."
"The features of Acunetix have proved most effective in identifying vulnerabilities."
"The solution is excellent at detecting SQL injection and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities."
"It's not possible to do penetration testing without being very proficient in Metasploit."
"When I compare Metasploit with Nessus, I find that Metasploit is faster and it does not burden the system as much."
"All of the features are great."
"The most valuable feature for us is the support for testing Linux-based web server components."
"Rapid7 Metasploit is a useful product."
"The most valuable features and capabilities of Rapid7 Metasploit are its tight connection with InsightVM, which searches for potential threats and vulnerabilities and then validates whether we can break the system using those vulnerabilities, serving as a validator component of the InsightVM solution."
"It is scalable. It's in line with our needs."
"When I compare Metasploit with Nessus, I find that Metasploit is faster and it does not burden the system as much."
 

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."
"Acunetix needs to be dynamic with JavaScript code, unlike Netsparker which can scan complex agents."
"The only problem that they have is the price. It is a bit expensive, and you cannot change the number of applications for the whole year."
"Improving the handling of false positives would be beneficial because it can be challenging to trust the findings flagged by Acunetix, and those findings must be manually validated."
"The cost can be reduced as management has noted it to be on the higher side."
"I believe Acunetix can improve customer support, as the dedicated support staff are often unfamiliar with problems and troubleshooting, leading to communication gaps that delay issue resolution."
"When monitoring the traffic we always have issues with the bandwidth consumption and the throttling of traffic."
"The jargon used makes it difficult for project managers to understand the issues, and the technical explanations used make it difficult for developers to understand issues. These things should be simplified much more. That would be very helpful for us when explaining to them what needs to be fixed. The report output needs to be simplified."
"I believe Acunetix can improve customer support, as the dedicated support staff are often unfamiliar with problems and troubleshooting, leading to communication gaps that delay issue resolution."
"Support is another area where improvement is needed, particularly for assisting non-security users."
"The open-source version has reporting limitations. You need to develop these capabilities yourself. Built-in reporting is an excellent feature for penetration testing, but it isn't a must-have. The solution could also cover more vulnerabilities. Metasploit has around 10,000 exploits in its library, but more is always better."
"Advanced Infrastructure should be implemented in the next release for better orchestration."
"If your company's patch is not up to date, but you have other detection or defense solutions such as endpoint detection and response and antivirus software, the product exploit may not work effectively. This is because its exploit database update process is slow and not real-time. For zero-day vulnerabilities or new security threats, relying on Rapid7 Metasploit alone may not be effective."
"Rapid7 Metasploit can add a GUI feature because it is only available online."
"Better automation capabilities would be an improvement."
"The initial setup was a bit "tweaky" for the open-source version."
"Metasploit cannot be installed on a machine with an antivirus."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The cost is based on two types of licenses, ConsultLite, and ConsultPlus, as well as the number of domains that are scanned."
"The price is exceptionally high."
"Implementing Acunetix needs a medium or larger business agency, because you need some money to get Acunetix. It is costly, but if you care about your agency's security, then maybe it's a cost that might help you in the future."
"It is a bit expensive. If you need to check five applications, you have to pay almost 14,000. It is an agreement for two years at 7,000 per year for only five applications. You cannot change the applications in the license. So, you are stuck with the same license for the five applications for one full year."
"The solution is expensive."
"The costs aren't very expensive. It costs around $3000 or $4000."
"The pricing is a little high, and moreover, it's kind of domain-based."
"When we looked at all other vendors and what they were asking for, to provide a third of what Acunetix was capable of doing, it was an easy decision... But now that it's coming to a cost where it's line with market value, it becomes more of a competition... Acunetix is raising the cost of licensing. It's 3.5 times what we were initially quoted."
"Rapid7 Metasploit is cheaper than Tenable.io Vulnerability Management."
"The cost is approximately $15 per device."
"It is expensive. Our license expired, and our company is not thinking to renew because of our budget."
"Rapid7 Metasploit is an open-source solution."
"The great advantage with Rapid7 Metasploit, of course, is that it's free."
"I use the open-source version of this product. Pricing is not relevant."
"The pricing structure involves a one-time purchase cost of approximately twenty thousand dollars or euros for all customers."
"There are two versions available, one of which is the Pro version, and the other is the free version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
 

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...
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...
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...
What do you like most about Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
The tool's most valuable feature is scan configurations. We use it for external physical applications. The scanning t...
What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
My main use case for Acunetix is providing a vulnerability scanner for our web application server. I use Acunetix to ...
What advice do you have for others considering Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
My advice to others looking into using Acunetix is that it is really helpful to discover the web attacks and have gre...
What do you like most about Rapid7 Metasploit?
I use Rapid7 Metasploit for payload generation and Post-Exploitation.
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...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
AcuSensor
Metasploit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Joomla!, Digicure, Team Random, Credit Suisse, Samsung, Air New Zealand
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Acunetix vs. Rapid7 Metasploit and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,282 professionals have used our research since 2012.