Rapid7 Metasploit vs Tenable Nessus comparison

Rapid7 and Tenable are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Rapid7 is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.4, while Tenable is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6. Rapid7 holds a 1.2% mindshare in VM, compared to Tenable’s 5.9% 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 December 2025, 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 1.2%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 5.9%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Tenable Nessus	5.9%
Zafran Security	1.1%
Rapid7 Metasploit	1.2%
Other	91.8%

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

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"It contains almost all the available exploits and payloads."

"The most valuable feature for us is the support for testing Linux-based web server components."

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

"I would definitely recommend Metasploit to others."

"The most valuable features of Metasploit include its powerful capabilities for exploitation and scanning."

"Rapid7 Metasploit is a useful product."

"I don't have any other tools like it, and I always use it when I'm doing a pen test. Metasploit is a great solution for penetration testing,"

"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."

More Rapid7 Metasploit pros

"The solution is great for scanning servers."

"The reports are pretty nice and easy to understand."

"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the support it provides for any new vulnerabilities quickly."

"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is vulnerability detection."

"The scanning capabilities are most valuable when compared to Nessus."

"It gives you an unlimited IP scan."

"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is vulnerability assessments. There are a lot of threats around the world and this solution is the first to come out with detection rules."

"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."

More Tenable Nessus pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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."

"The solution is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."

"I think areas with shortcomings that need improvement are more integration and automation."

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

"The reporting feature needs improvement."

"Better automation capabilities would be an improvement."

"Rapid7 Metasploit could be made easier for new users to learn."

"The solution should improve the responsiveness of its live technical support."

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

More Rapid7 Metasploit cons

"I would like to see an improvement in the ranking of high, medium and low vulnerability."

"The price and scalability of the solution could improve."

"The solution could improve by having better integration with different vendors' IPS solutions. The ACLs and IPS policies signatures should be enabled based on the results of Tenable Nessus automatically, we currently have to do it manually which is very time-consuming. It has done a good job integrating with Fortinet but we would like it to be better integrated with other solutions that we have."

"Tenable Nessus could include a broader range of IT assets."

"The solution could improve security updates."

"The price could be reduced."

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

"It would be nice for the professional module to include some of the reports available in the expert module."

More Tenable Nessus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product's pricing a six. So it's fairly priced."

"The cost is approximately $15 per device."

"Rapid7 Metasploit is cheaper than Tenable.io Vulnerability Management."

"Rapid7 Metasploit is an open-source solution."

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

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

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

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

More Rapid7 Metasploit pricing and cost advice

"The price of Tenable Nessus could improve, it is expensive."

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

"This solution is affordable."

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

"The product is free."

"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."

"Nessus is affordable, but its licensing model could be improved with more flexibility for adding assets."

"We pay approximately $2,500 on a yearly basis."

More Tenable Nessus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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.

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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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Comparisons

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Compared 27% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

Wiz vs Zafran Security

Compared 3% of the time

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Qualys VMDR vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 12% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon Inspector vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 7% of the time

Acunetix vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 6% of the time

Pentera vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 6% of the time

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Qualys VMDR vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 11% of the time

Rapid7 InsightVM vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 11% 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

The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai vs Tenable Nessus

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 Metasploit

December 2025

Download Rapid7 Metasploit product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Nessus

December 2025

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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