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Qualys VMDR vs Rapid7 Metasploit vs Tenable Nessus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.0
Qualys VMDR enhances ROI by streamlining management, improving compliance, reducing vulnerabilities, saving time, and minimizing breaches effectively.
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
3.0
Tenable Nessus boosts security by enhancing threat visibility, reducing vulnerabilities, saving costs, and achieving high user satisfaction.
We saw a return on investment through significant savings in time, money, and resources.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
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
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Qualys VMDR support is responsive and helpful, but users note occasional delays and suggest better response time and depth.
Sentiment score
5.9
Rapid7 Metasploit support has mixed reviews, with helpful resources but varying response times and effectiveness compared to Cisco.
Sentiment score
3.9
Tenable Nessus support is praised for responsiveness and efficiency, with mixed feedback on response times and depth for advanced queries.
We usually get on calls with tech support, and they are very helpful.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
The response time takes a while.
Security Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
The technical support provided by Qualys is pretty good.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
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
We received support within one to three hours.
CIO at a insurance company with 201-500 employees
Whenever any issue arises, we contact the support, and they are always there for us.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
The technical support is good yet could improve in terms of response time.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Qualys VMDR is highly scalable, supporting numerous assets efficiently with customizable management and seamless cloud-based architecture.
Sentiment score
5.1
Rapid7 Metasploit's scalability opinions vary, some see limitations, others appreciate flexibility; performance varies by project and infrastructure.
Sentiment score
5.2
Tenable Nessus is scalable and flexible for most organizations but may face limitations with very large enterprises.
Scalability depends on the license and the number of assets being monitored.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Qualys VMDR can handle scalability, although increasing the inventory can raise the licensing costs.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Qualys VMDR's scalability is good, and the customer support is good.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
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
Whether managing 50 servers today or 500 tomorrow, performance or capacity are not hindered.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Tenable Nessus is definitely scalable, especially for license formats designed for scalability.
Security Center Coordinator at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Qualys VMDR is highly stable, reliable, and effective, with minimal downtime and challenges mostly due to user-side 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
5.8
Tenable Nessus is praised for stability and reliability, with high user satisfaction despite minor setup and update issues.
Qualys VMDR is stable.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
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 with missing network items or errors in API and webhook interactions.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
The stability of Tenable Nessus is extraordinary.
Founder at Cipheroot
 

Room For Improvement

Qualys VMDR needs improved support, efficient reporting, UI, asset notifications, reduced tool dependency, better pricing, and comprehensive resources.
Rapid7 Metasploit needs faster updates, improved tools integration, better UI, enhanced features, and updated evasion capabilities for modern defenses.
Tenable Nessus requires enhanced reporting, better integration, modern UI, faster scans, accurate detection, and comprehensive IT asset coverage.
It does not automate patching unless the patch management module is purchased separately.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
If AI features were integrated, it could enhance the capabilities significantly.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
One area where Qualys VMDR can be improved is the missing feature for deploying agents for over 1,000 assets, as we need to do it manually.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
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 is Tenable's property. They want to sell Tenable Security Center, and they closed all the API capability for Tenable Nessus Professional.
Co-Founder at RSU Consultancy
An AI feature that helps them discover options without requiring them to deep dive into all features or guides them through advisory functions would be beneficial.
Freelancer And CEO at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
The documentation is not well-organized, which can be confusing when searching for solutions or specific information related to Tenable Nessus Professional.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Qualys VMDR pricing is high for small businesses but offers flexibility, discounts, and comprehensive features for larger enterprises.
Rapid7 Metasploit's pricing ranges from free to $20,000, with varied opinions on its affordability compared to competitors.
Tenable Nessus is valued for affordability and flexibility, though costs vary by organization size, IP count, and region.
I would rate the pricing between seven to eight out of ten.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
I have a notion that Qualys might be more expensive than Rapid7.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
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 for Tenable Nessus has increased significantly, tripling over the last few years.
Security Center Coordinator at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
Tenable Nessus's pricing is adequate if it is fully utilized.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
When we compare it to other solutions, it is more difficult for us to negotiate the price for Tenable Nessus than to negotiate the price with Rapid7.
Freelancer And CEO at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

Qualys VMDR offers user-friendly management, real-time insights, and powerful integrations, significantly improving vulnerability prioritization and remediation efficiency.
Rapid7 Metasploit excels in penetration testing with strong integration, comprehensive features, and efficient management in a unified platform.
Tenable Nessus excels in vulnerability detection, user-friendliness, scalability, real-time monitoring, integration, compliance reporting, and remediation advice.
The prioritization of vulnerabilities has improved our remediation efforts by around thirty to thirty-five percent.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
It impacts my workflow overall, with the patch management features as it has the missing patches listed in detail, making it easier to get a comprehensive report and providing some dashboards that offer visual representation.
JMS, RPSG Ventures Limited at RP Sanjiv Goenka Group
Qualys VMDR's continuous monitoring capabilities help us respond to emergent threats by enabling my team to reach out to the security engineers whenever there is any detection of a vulnerability, informing them about it, and creating an incident.
Soc Lead & Edr Administration at Persistent Systems
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
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.
Founder at Cipheroot
The scanning and reporting features are the most valuable aspects of Tenable Nessus.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable features of Tenable Nessus include its ease of access and quick usability.
Security Center Coordinator at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 4.9%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 Metasploit is 1.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 4.9%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Nessus4.9%
Qualys VMDR4.9%
Rapid7 Metasploit1.7%
Other88.5%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Vaibhav Ghule - PeerSpot reviewer
Soc Lead & Edr Administration at Persistent Systems
Continuous risk-based monitoring has strengthened incident response and vulnerability prioritization
I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries lack grouping operators in Qualys VMDR. From my experience, I would appreciate improvements in the query options in Qualys VMDR, specifically in the query-building process where I would need more features and operators. Additionally, we have been facing issues with Qualys on the cloud level. We cannot download the configuration profile from the cloud agent, and it is showing a pending action for download. During 2025, we noticed outages of Qualys a couple of times. I want to mention that there is an issue with receiving timely RCA deliveries. While this is not necessarily about the tool, it relates to support. The support has not been very responsive, and we are receiving RCAs a little delayed whenever we raise support cases or communicate with the TAMs. Additionally, the UI has a slight latency, which I and my team have experienced. They have also reported this latency issue when navigating through different pages.
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.
MohammedJaffir - PeerSpot reviewer
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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise70
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Qualys VMDR?
I like that we have many scanners and channels that don't overload. It helps us scan and track easily. Also, the tagg...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys VMDR?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that we can consider both time and money saved.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries la...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
Metasploit
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Agrokor Group, American Specialty Health, American State Bank, Arval, Life:), Axway, Bank of the West, Blueport Commerce, BSkyB, Brinks, CaixaBank, Cartagena, Catholic Health System, CEC Bank, Cegedim, CIGNA, Clickability, Colby-Sawyer College, Commercial Bank of Dubai, University of Utah, eBay Inc., ING Singapore, National Theatre, OTP Bank, Sodexo, WebEx
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Wiz, Tenable, Qualys and others in Vulnerability Management. Updated: February 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.