Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Rapid7 Metasploit comparison

The compared Cato Networks and Rapid7 solutions aren't in the same category. Cato Networks is ranked #3 in SASE , with an average rating of 9.0, and holds a 9.4% mindshare in the category. Rapid7 is ranked #26 in VM , with an average rating of 9.3, and holds a 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cato Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Rapid7 users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cato SASE Cloud Platform and Rapid7 Metasploit based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, Cato Networks and others in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE).

To learn more, read our detailed Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

March 2026

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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

iboss

Mindshare comparison

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cato SASE Cloud Platform	9.4%
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks	10.8%
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform	9.1%
Other	70.69999999999999%

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Rapid7 Metasploit	1.7%
Wiz	5.5%
Qualys VMDR	4.4%
Other	88.4%

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula

Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support

The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.

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reviewer2697738

Product & Services Integrator at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Cloud security has unified global network design and has simplified threat visibility

I think all of the functionalities, such as the secure web gateway feature, are quite good. I also believe Cato SASE Cloud Platform is one of the only solutions that has not only a software firewall solution but also a physical software solution where you can change the company's firewalls and put in sockets from Cato SASE Cloud Platform, which I see as an advantage for them. The single-pass architecture has improved user experience with Cato SASE Cloud Platform as it provides security teams in companies a platform where they can easily obtain information if there are breaches or security issues. I assess the benefit of integrating WAN optimization as good. There is ease in making rules between WAN optimization, especially when it comes to global connections because of all their points of presence that are spread over the world. I think the real-time threat protection of Cato SASE Cloud Platform is also good. Their points of presence are quite efficient, and I do not see any delays in that area.

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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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."

"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."

"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."

"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."

"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."

More iboss pros

"The most valuable feature is that it also works as a next-gen firewall because it has security features."

"The ability for this system to handle outages on one circuit out of four meant that we didn't have any downtime because of one of our circuits going down or having a performance issue."

"Unified management and internet duplication are our most valuable features. They provide a seamless experience for end users—if one link goes down, they can still work without noticing."

"What I found most helpful in Cato Networks is that it works out of the box. One of its main advantages is that it's a simple product to deploy. You subscribe, and you're ready to run."

"It is difficult to find types of companies I would not recommend Cato SASE Cloud Platform to, and I believe you can use Cato SASE Cloud Platform in most environments, although there could be some cases where organizations are really cost-sensitive."

"The tool's advantage is that it provides a hassle-free solution that is easy to manage across all customers. For instance, we have a few customers with as few as 50 users, including one with a branch in Vietnam and others with thousands of users."

"Cato Networks seems to do everything we wanted it to do."

"The Cato SASE Cloud Platform supports my customers' needs for connectivity and security by removing the throttling from the headquarters and putting a firewall in the cloud, instead of having to use a costly MPLS network to perform security inspection on all traffic from various branches."

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform pros

"All of the features are great."

"This product is fantastic."

"Metasploit is the most favored toolkit for network security professionals and penetration testers."

"The tool's most useful feature for penetration testing is its automation capabilities. With the professional edition, you can upload the results from Nessus in the Rapid7 Metasploit solution portal."

"For a free product, the capabilities are absolutely astonishing."

"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 reporting on the solution is good."

"Rapid7 has a significant advantage in providing a clear picture of my environment."

More Rapid7 Metasploit pros

Cons

"Its pricing could be better."

"The reporting feature needs improvement."

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability within the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing."

"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."

"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."

"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."

"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."

More iboss cons

"However, Cato's solution is modular. You don't have to buy the whole package; instead, you can start with some of the functionality and then expand it as you see fit, based on its value and as your other contracts expire."

"The product's technical support could be more responsive."

"There's no principal in Malaysia, only a distributor."

"The different languages in the user interface should be enhanced to include other languages."

"For a packaged solution, needing external intervention or a system integrator to get other features not offered by Cato Networks could be an area for improvement. Cato Networks does what it's meant to do and is even overstretching capabilities when introducing new features. The product can only have very few features added on top of what its currently doing. Managed service providers can deliver the extra features you'd need. It's a set of managed services, and what Cato Networks does is very comprehensive. So, for the time being, when the actual incarnation of the SASE solution is deployed, Cato Networks is a very effective product. Naturally, technology will evolve, so everybody knows that in three, four, or five years, there will be a new kid on the block, a new game. Still, at the moment, Cato Networks only needs to improve a little regarding SASE delivery. The product is doing very well, but one feature the Cato Networks team is doing right is preparing for the future through deploying the SSE 360, so the security service is at that edge. It's an excellent strategy to prepare for the future. SSE 360 is what Cato Networks should invest in the most to keep prospering."

"The solution could be made more user friendly for the administrator to use the portal. It is difficult to use it for people who are not experienced with Cato Networks."

"They should add more sophisticated security features. It should also be integrated into the cloud."

"For a packaged solution, needing external intervention or a system integrator to get other features not offered by Cato Networks could be an area for improvement."

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform cons

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

"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 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."

"Metasploit cannot be installed on a machine with an antivirus."

"Exploit updates are slow after security patches to a certain OS."

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

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

More Rapid7 Metasploit cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"The solution's pricing is flexible."

"The solution is reasonably priced since Cato Networks provides features like SASE and monitoring, which I am very happy with currently."

"I'd rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform's pricing as about five or six out of ten. It's not the cheapest solution, but it is cheaper than Palo Alto and even VeloCloud. We've been working with them for a while and have significant discounts. Our licensing costs vary because we keep adding sites, but it's about 280 per month per site. This includes additional features beyond the base product, starting at around 200."

"The platform is expensive."

"The product is very competitively priced, and that's compelling. They don't charge the customer based on the operational cost like other brands such as Palo Alto. Cato has its own fully-fledged cloud, with their own data centers, equipment, and so on, which is an advantage. I rate the solution five out of five for affordability."

"The pricing of the solution depends upon the bandwidth required for different branches"

"The price of Cato Networks is in the middle range compared to other solutions. NetFoundry is a less expensive solution than Cato Networks."

"Cato Networks seems more expensive than Cisco Meraki."

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform pricing and cost advice

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

"Rapid7 Metasploit is an open-source solution."

"It is expensive. Our license expired, and our company is not thinking to renew because of our budget."

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

"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."

"We pay monthly. The pricing is reasonable."

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

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

More Rapid7 Metasploit pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	11

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

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?

iboss can increase security in cyberspace. I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they a...

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What is your primary use case for iboss?

I use iboss for corporate VPN and all the corporate VRF, with basically all user traffic proxying to the internet.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?

Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alte...

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What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?

I can see that I am a consultant at a reseller and I am the architect of Cato SASE Cloud Platform designs. In the bas...

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What advice do you have for others considering Cato Networks?

It is difficult to find types of companies I would not recommend Cato SASE Cloud Platform to, and I believe you can u...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cato Networks?

I do not find it particularly expensive, but for some companies, they may not have the budget to be at that level of ...

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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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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 inte...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

FortiSASE vs iboss

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 6% of the time

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Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Aryaka Unified SASE Platform vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 8% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 6% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 5% of the time

The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 5% of the time

More Rapid7 Metasploit Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

April 2026

Download iboss product report

Buyer's Guide

Cato SASE Cloud Platform

April 2026

Download Cato SASE Cloud Platform product report

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 Metasploit

April 2026

Download Rapid7 Metasploit product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

Cato Networks

Metasploit

Overview

Iboss offers a comprehensive cloud-based security platform valued for its scalability and autonomous features, ensuring robust security with easy deployment and management capabilities.

Renowned for its robust security architecture, Iboss integrates seamlessly within diverse networks, delivering efficient granular filtering and advanced content categorization. Its single pane of glass console provides ease of management, allowing rapid scalability suitable for rapidly deploying environments. Operates in BYOD setups due to inline filtering without device installation. Integration with cloud-based applications enhances user control, and features like SASE, SSL inspection, and ChatGPT risk protection stand as highlights. Despite its strengths, users have pointed out areas for enhancement like direct navigation in reports, SSL decryption, and better cloud integration while having room to improve data loss prevention.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

Scalability: Supports rapid deployment across diverse networks.
SASE: A consolidated approach to secure access.
SSL Inspection: Ensures safe data transmission.
Granular Filtering: Detailed control over accessible content.
Single Pane Management: Unifies control through a centralized console.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing with robust features.
Autonomous Operation: Reduces management overhead.
Responsive Support: Provides assistance when needed.
Flexible Deployment: Available for both cloud and on-premises environments.

The usage of Iboss spans educational institutions, specifically K-12, to enforce internet policies, protect data, and support remote work environments. It provides web filtering and security frameworks to ensure safe browsing. Its platform-as-a-service model offers flexibility for both cloud-based and on-premises requirements, integrating seamlessly to deliver enhanced security features suitable for various deployment needs including zero trust, CASB, and network security for work-from-home setups.

iboss

Cato Networks is a leading SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) platform, combining SD-WAN and network security to obtain a cloud-native service. Cato Networks optimizes and secures application access for users and identities. The platform delivers a next-generation secure networking architecture that minimizes legacy IT infrastructures’ complexity, costs, and risks. The goal of Cato Suite is to connect any user to any application securely and optimally.

Cato Suite runs on a private global network of more than 65 PoPs (points of presence) connected via SLA-backed network providers. The service can connect branches, data centers, users, and clouds. Cato can be deployed in stages to augment legacy network services.

Cato Suite delivers end-to-end route optimization for WAN and cloud traffic. The architecture is self-healing, enabling a high service uptime.

Cato Features

Cato Cloud has a global backbone to deliver a reliable, global network. Here are some key SD-WAN features of Cato Cloud.

Optimizes traffic flows: The Cato Suite can individually optimize traffic flows in the last mile - from the customer’s location to the point of presence, and also between PoPs. This feature eliminates the need for internet providers to hand off traffic to each other, avoiding the resulting latency and congestion.
Controls and manages bandwidth: The software-defined overlay is encrypted across the entire cloud infrastructure. This overlay uses application-aware routing, analyzing latency and loss data to choose the best route according to network conditions. These features, like protocol priority marking, enable the system to ensure the performance of real-time applications.
Delivers redundancy and failover: By connecting the points of presence with multiple Tier-1 IPs, Cato builds the redundancy needed to ensure security and highly available service.
Cloud-native: Cato is built as a scalable, resilient, and elastic cloud service.
Converged: The platform converges SD-WAN and network security into a single infrastructure framework.
Secures all edges: Cato Network can secure and optimize traffic from all users, locations, applications, and clouds.

What challenges does Cato Network solve?

Migration to SD-WAN

MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) networks are usually expensive and limited in their capacity. Cato simplifies migrating to a faster, higher-capacity internet and SASE cloud. Cato SD-WAN appliances enable customers to improve usable capacity and resiliency.

Global connectivity optimization

Customers who suffer from the challenge of high latency and network inconsistency can use Cato to deliver a consistent connection and user experience to access on-premises and cloud applications.

Securing branch internet access

Cato’s complete network security stack connects all branch locations to the Cato cloud, therefore protecting all traffic, both internet-bound and WAN, with enterprise-grade, cloud-based security services. This capability avoids having to backhaul internet traffic to a data center or hub or having to implement stand-alone cloud security solutions.

Cloud acceleration and control

Organizations using Cato notice an acceleration of cloud traffic. Cato achieves this by routing all traffic from the edges to the PoP closest to the data center. Because of the close distance between the two, the latency is near zero.

Reviews from Real Users

An IT manager/project coordinator at a healthcare company says that “[Cato is] a cloud-based solution that integrates well with everything. They are the classic SaaS solution.”

Yeong-Gi L., a network engineer at Snetsystems, notes that “The solution is very stable. The scalability is quite good. Technical support was always helpful and responsive. The integration capabilities are not a problem at all.”

"The most valuable feature is that it also works as a next-gen firewall because it has security features," says Lorenzo S., senior solutions consultant Lead at MDI.

Cato Networks

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

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.

Paysafe, AdRoll, Pet Lovers Centre, Arlington Orthopedics, Humphreys & Partners Architects

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

Buyer's Guide

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

March 2026

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