Rapid7 Metasploit vs Wireshark comparison

The compared Rapid7 and Wireshark solutions aren't in the same category. Rapid7 is ranked #20 in VM , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 1.4% mindshare in the category. Wireshark is ranked #4 in NT , with an average rating of 9.0, and holds a 13.4% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Rapid7 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Wireshark users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Rapid7 Metasploit and Wireshark based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Vulnerability Management

July 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

Vulnerability Management

Network Troubleshooting

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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Vijay Duggal

Network Specialist at Squarepoint Capital

Provides detailed traffic analysis and helps troubleshoot issues

There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. While the solution supports sampling as fine as one millisecond, it requires a copy at that interval. My Python script allows me to achieve a granularity of up to ten microseconds, but I can't go beyond that. When dealing with provisioning on both issues, it would be beneficial if I could go down to the microsecond level, if not the nanosecond. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain.

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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

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

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

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

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"All of the features are great."

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

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

"It is scalable. It's in line with our needs."

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

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

"It's not possible to do penetration testing without being very proficient in Metasploit."

"The Search Engineering feature is good."

More Rapid7 Metasploit pros

"I like the filtering feature as we can filter data easily. This feature is also available in tcpdump, but it's a simple piece of software. Wireshark is more advanced and has many features. It allows you to filter a lot of things. The output can be filtered easily. The most important feature is colorization. If I say, "Okay, this particular SMB protocol in red, it will show me red." It's easy to identify that protocol or capture data."

"The options that are required to get the details for the packet drops are good."

"I find Wireshark a very useful tool. Its best feature is that it allows me to deeply understand what's going on at the packet level, as well as any adverse signatures that I can analyze. When I need to create an IPS rule, I need to check the traffic deeply to get more insights about the actual traffic, what's the name of certain flags, etc., and I'm able to do all that through Wireshark. The tool is also user-friendly."

"The transmission and reception issues are valuable."

"Packet-capture files can be hard to use due to their size. Wireshark has a tool called tshark that can parse the files with out opening them so that you can take large captures, say 2-10GB, and return only relevant information."

"It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."

"It gives us the ability to pinpoint problems and to communicate network problems with software and hardware vendors."

"The most valuable feature of Wireshark is the ability to choose a destination of flow that has not been working as expected."

More Wireshark pros

Cons

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

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

"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."

"Better automation capabilities would be an improvement."

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

"I would like to see more capabilities, more functions, and more features. More types of attack vectors."

"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."

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

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

More Rapid7 Metasploit cons

"There is a disadvantage when it comes to sampling intervals. Additionally, I've heard from a colleague that Wireshark might be less effective in the voice domain."

"You need some basic knowledge to work with Wireshark. Maybe it could be more user-friendly just for new users. Just for the new generation."

"Wireshark could make the filtering rules easier to apply and offer a drag-and-drop option as opposed to type and text."

"The product has been using the same GUI for many years."

"This product needs to improve the UI."

"The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance."

"I would like better control of bandwidth from the service provider."

"The only thing that I don't like is sometimes there is an update, and something that I was using is either no longer there or it has changed."

More Wireshark cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

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

"We pay monthly. The pricing is reasonable."

"Rapid7 Metasploit is an open-source solution."

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

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

"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."

More Rapid7 Metasploit pricing and cost advice

"The solution is open source so is free."

"Wireshark is open-source and free of charge."

"We are using a freeware version of this solution, so there are no licence costs involved."

"Wireshark is free of charge, and there's no license involved."

"Wireshark is free software, so you can download it and use it for free with no licensing fees."

"We're using the free version of Wireshark."

"It is free to download and install. It runs on multiple platforms, so how can you go wrong?"

"Wireshark is open source and gives great value and functionality to the network investigation."

More Wireshark pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

University

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

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?

The current pricing of Zafran Security is fair overall. They were good to work with to accommodate our organization w...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

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

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

Zafran Security is helping reduce the amount of critical vulnerabilities in our environments that require prompt reme...

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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?

Metasploit is cheaper than Nessus and offers a more robust community edition that provides a good experience for stud...

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What needs improvement with Rapid7 Metasploit?

While Metasploit excels in vulnerability assessment, it could improve in vulnerability management. Nessus currently h...

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What do you like most about Wireshark?

The GUI is easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Wireshark?

Wireshark is priced at a medium range, not too high, not too low. The pricing could be more flexible, and they might ...

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What needs improvement with Wireshark?

The speed of the Internet could be improved, especially its performance. Performance can sometimes be a challenge due...

See all answers

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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

Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer.

Wireshark

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

Comversion, ADP, Talbots

Buyer's Guide

Vulnerability Management

July 2025

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