Rapid7 Metasploit vs Tenable Vulnerability Management comparison

Rapid7 and Tenable are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Rapid7 is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.4, while Tenable is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.0. Rapid7 holds a 1.3% mindshare in VM, compared to Tenable’s 4.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Rapid7 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Tenable users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Rapid7 Metasploit and Tenable Vulnerability Management compete in the cybersecurity landscape, offering unique advantages. Rapid7 Metasploit appears to excel in penetration testing agility, while Tenable surpasses with its extensive feature suite and comprehensive coverage.

Features: Rapid7 Metasploit is recognized for its diverse exploitation tools, adaptable modules, and strong penetration testing capabilities. Tenable Vulnerability Management provides detailed vulnerability assessments, constant monitoring, and network security integration, offering deep insights.

Room for Improvement: Rapid7 Metasploit could enhance its vulnerability management sophistication, improve its reporting capabilities, and offer more continuous monitoring features. Tenable Vulnerability Management might work on easing user interaction complexity, reducing initial setup time, and expanding its exploitation toolset.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Rapid7 Metasploit offers a simple setup with robust support for quick resolution. Tenable Vulnerability Management provides a cloud-based deployment model for easy integration, supported by strong infrastructure that ensures consistent service excellence.

Pricing and ROI: Rapid7 Metasploit is seen as cost-effective, providing significant returns due to its specialized testing capabilities. Tenable Vulnerability Management, though requiring higher initial investment, offers substantial long-term ROI through its comprehensive security features and risk assessment.

To learn more, read our detailed Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Vulnerability Management Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Vulnerability Management

September 2025

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Helped 867,676 peers since 2012

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 September 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.0%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 Metasploit is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Vulnerability Management is 4.9%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Tenable Vulnerability Management	4.9%
Zafran Security	1.0%
Rapid7 Metasploit	1.3%
Other	92.8%

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

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.

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Mani Bommisetty

Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Mani Bommisetty

Infrastructure patching Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Streamlines vulnerability management with excellent reporting and potential AI integration

Tenable is user-friendly and excels in reporting. It allows me to easily fetch and schedule reports. The software's discovery feature aids in strengthening our security posture. The single-sensor installation process on various operating systems is smooth, unlike Rapid7, which requires different versions for separate systems. Furthermore, Tenable enables vulnerability management through potential AI integration that consolidates efforts and resolves multiple vulnerabilities simultaneously.

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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 has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"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."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"I would definitely recommend Metasploit to others."

"I use Rapid7 Metasploit for payload generation and Post-Exploitation."

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

"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."

"The Search Engineering feature is good."

"The option to generate phishing emails has proven to be very valuable in understanding the behavior of users."

"The most valuable features of the solution are the scripts, the modules, and the tools that the Rapid7 Metasploit framework has."

"When I compare Metasploit with Nessus, I find that Metasploit is faster and it does not burden the system as much."

More Rapid7 Metasploit pros

"The initial setup is not complex."

"The ease of use in terms of scanning assets is valuable."

"The price of Tenable.io Vulnerability Management is reasonable as it is ten times cheaper than other options."

"The vulnerability scanning is the most important aspect of the solution for us."

"I would rate Tenable's dashboards and reporting capabilities for illustrating security posture a nine out of ten, with ten being the best."

"Tenable.io, in particular, is quite a powerful product. It looks at your traditional environment, which is pretty much anything that is on-premises, and it also goes a step ahead and covers your modern assets, which is anything that is currently sitting in the cloud. You get complete visibility of your entire environment and tech operation. The ability to give you visibility across the entire tech surface is one of the biggest advantages that Tenable.io has."

"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The best feature of the solution is the amount of visibility it provides of the vulnerabilities."

More Tenable Vulnerability Management pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"The solution is not very scalable, it does not provide any automation to be able to scale it."

"Support is another area where improvement is needed, particularly for assisting non-security users."

"The database is not always updated with the latest vulnerabilities or zero-day exploits."

"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."

"The database is not always updated with the latest vulnerabilities or zero-day exploits. If a vulnerability arises a month or two ago, it might not be included in the database, which is something I would like to see improved."

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

More Rapid7 Metasploit cons

"Tenable could improve visibility into assets, including automated asset tagging. You should be able to automatically tag assets based on location, function, ownership, etc. That would help us because we spend a lot of time identifying and tagging assets by hand."

"An area of improvement for this solution is being able to customize the dashboard. For example, the dashboard does not allow us to view a previous months vulnerability results alongside current results to make comparisons."

"They've been able to think about everything in terms of where the world is going and the type of assets that you've got. They've everything sorted out in that aspect, but you have to pay for most of the other components that they've got to give you complete visibility across your tech surface. If it already had those capabilities in-built, without having to add them on to take advantage of them, it would be a very compelling value proposition."

"It's not a user-friendly tool since it has a complicated interface."

"Another area of improvement is customer service and support. Tenable needs to include support in the pricing/license. Currently, they push clients to get support from partners or channel distributors, who often charge a lot."

"I don't recommend Tenable.io Vulnerability Management for web scanning"

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

"The product could be easier to set up on the cloud."

More Tenable Vulnerability Management cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Rapid7 Metasploit is an open-source solution."

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

"There are two versions available, one of which is the Pro version, and the other is the free version."

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

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

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

"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."

More Rapid7 Metasploit pricing and cost advice

"Tenable.io is not known for being a cheap product."

"The tool is reasonably priced."

"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten. It is in the middle."

"The product costs us around $137,000 annually for 4000 to 5000 assets."

"The solution is not too expensive."

"There are additional features that can be licensed for an additional cost."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high price, I rate the pricing an eight. So, it is a pretty expensive solution."

"Compared to other VM solutions, Tenable.io Vulnerability Management is expensive."

More Tenable Vulnerability Management pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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	20
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	20

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.

See all answers

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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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.io Vulnerability Management?

The tool has an easy-to-use interface.

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What needs improvement with Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?

I don't think I have any additional features to add for improvement, as Tenable Vulnerability Management does a prett...

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Comparisons

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ServiceNow Security Operations vs Zafran Security

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Compared 17% of the time

Pentera vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon Inspector vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 10% of the time

Acunetix vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 9% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Enterprise Edition vs Rapid7 Metasploit

Compared 8% of the time

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Tenable Nessus vs Tenable Vulnerability Management

Compared 13% of the time

Tenable Security Center vs Tenable Vulnerability Management

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon Inspector vs Tenable Vulnerability Management

Compared 8% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Tenable Vulnerability Management

Compared 5% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Identity vs Tenable Vulnerability Management

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

August 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 Metasploit

August 2025

Download Rapid7 Metasploit product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Vulnerability Management

August 2025

Download Tenable Vulnerability Management product report

Also Known As

No data available

Metasploit

Tenable.io

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

Managed in the cloud and powered by Tenable Nessus, Tenable Vulnerability Management (formerly Tenable.io) provides the industry's most comprehensive vulnerability coverage with real-time continuous assessment of your organization. Built-in prioritization, threat intelligence and real-time insight help you understand your exposures and proactively prioritize remediations.

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

Global Payments AU/NZ

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Vulnerability Management

September 2025

Free Report: Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Vulnerability Management

Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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