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Rapid7 Metasploit vs Tenable Nessus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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
27th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (6th)
Rapid7 Metasploit
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
Mani Bommisetty - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive insights with robust vulnerability detection and streamlined alert management
Rapid7 has a significant advantage in providing a clear picture of my environment. It provides insight and incident detection response capabilities. When deployed with the same agent in servers or endpoints, it identifies vulnerabilities and monitors data transmission to external sources. Rapid7 offers comprehensive features within one platform, eliminating the need to integrate multiple tools to see all alerts in one place.
HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
Provided increased visibility across the organization's servers
The user interface of Tenable Nessus feels outdated and could be more user-friendly. Additionally, the documentation is not well-organized, which can be confusing when searching for solutions or specific information related to Tenable Nessus Professional. The reporting feature could be improved by allowing users to create their own templates instead of relying on predefined ones.

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."
"Rapid7 has a significant advantage in providing a clear picture of my environment."
"I use Rapid7 Metasploit for payload generation and Post-Exploitation."
"It's not possible to do penetration testing without being very proficient in Metasploit."
"The Search Engineering feature is good."
"It allows us to concentrate solely on identified vulnerabilities without the hassle of additional setup."
"The option to generate phishing emails has proven to be very valuable in understanding the behavior of users."
"It is scalable. It's in line with our needs."
"It contains almost all the available exploits and payloads."
"The features I personally like include host discovery."
"Tenable Nessus is an absolutely stable and fantastic product."
"The most valuable feature is the installation of Tenable which is incredibly easy."
"The most valuable feature is the breadth of vulnerabilities that it finds. It's able to find across a lot of different platforms and operating systems. It's also able to combine local testing with network-based testing."
"The stability is very good."
"Nessus is effortless to integrate."
"Nessus is good at finding out what nodes you have in place. It will then provide you a report, by node, of what the vulnerabilities are. It does it quickly and stealthfully."
"The solution is the most dynamic one I have seen thus far."
 

Cons

"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 reporting feature needs improvement. The time taken to fetch reports based on the number of events can be extensive, unlike Tenable, which is more user-friendly and faster."
"While Metasploit excels in vulnerability assessment, it could improve in vulnerability management."
"Rapid7 Metasploit can add a GUI feature because it is only available online."
"Support is another area where improvement is needed, particularly for assisting non-security users."
"Rapid7 Metasploit could be made easier for new users to learn."
"The solution should improve the responsiveness of its live technical support."
"I think areas with shortcomings that need improvement are more integration and automation."
"The solution is not very scalable, it does not provide any automation to be able to scale it."
"This is still a maturing product. Tenable is only a scanner for one ability, while other solutions like Rapid7 have more tools for verification. We still have to manually verify to see if the vulnerability is a false positive or not."
"It wasn't very clear how the scripts are running the scans. There's information about the script but it's not straightforward. The script information for each of the plugins should be available, but it doesn't give us straightforward direct information about how it was executed. That needs to be more clear."
"The solution could improve security updates."
"The price and scalability of the solution could improve."
"I would like to see an improvement in the ranking of high, medium and low vulnerability."
"The tool needs to upgrade asset tracking."
"The price could be reduced."
"There should be a possibility to install agents on scanned machines. Tenable IO provides the capability of using local agents to check local problems, but this feature is not there in Tenable Nessus Professional. It would be nice to have something similar in Tenable Nessus Professional. We should have the capability to use local agents installed on the machines to locally check a problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There are two versions available, one of which is the Pro version, and the other is the free version."
"It is a reasonably priced solution. I would rate it from five out of ten."
"The cost is approximately $15 per device."
"The pricing structure involves a one-time purchase cost of approximately twenty thousand dollars or euros for all customers."
"The great advantage with Rapid7 Metasploit, of course, is that it's free."
"I have used the free version of Rapid7 Metasploit."
"We pay monthly. The pricing is reasonable."
"I use the open-source version of this product. Pricing is not relevant."
"In general, it is extremely expensive."
"The price of Tenable Nessus is too expensive for each service center."
"Its price is high for Libya. The companies here in Libya don't have the awareness of and a good budget for cybersecurity services. If you want them to go for a product, you need to provide something different. This differentiation is related to the price. They should give about 40% to 45% discount per person on the current cost."
"The product pricing is dynamic and varies based on the specific needs of each project and customer."
"Cost-wise, it's an affordable tool."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"I would like to see better discounts."
"It has a fair cost and very good cost-benefit ratio."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
6%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
7%
Educational Organization
41%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Pricing for Zafran Security is not expensive. We have a contract for five years, and the cost is lower than other too...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
I would like to see an integration with Check Point firewalls. It's essential for us and they are currently working o...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
We use Zafran Security for threat prioritization. We establish priority to understand which risks should be patched o...
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?
Metasploit is cheaper than Nessus and offers a more robust community edition that provides a good experience for stud...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 Metasploit?
While Metasploit excels in vulnerability assessment, it could improve in vulnerability management. Nessus currently h...
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

No data available
Metasploit
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.