We performed a comparison between Rapid7 Metasploit and Acunetix based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Result: Based on the parameters we compared, Acunetix comes out ahead of Rapid7 Metasploit. Although both products have valuable features and can be estimated as high-end solutions, our reviewers found that Rapid7 Metasploit requires technical understanding for deployment and the free version lacks technical support.
"Their technical support has been very active. If I have an issue, I can reach out to them and get an answer pretty quick."
"The vulnerability scanning option for analyzing the security loopholes on the websites is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"It's very user-friendly for the testing teams. It's very easy for them to understand things and to fix vulnerabilities."
"One of the features that I feel is groundbreaking, that I would like to see expanded on, is the IAS feature: The Interactive Application Security Testing module that gets loaded onto an application on a server, for more in-depth, granular findings. I think that is really neat. I haven't seen a lot of competitors doing that."
"Acunetix has an awesome crawler. It gives a referral site map of near targets and also goes really deep to find all the inputs without issues. This was valuable because it helped me find some files or directories, like web admin panels without authentication, which were hidden."
"Overall, it's a very good tool and a very good engine."
"Our developers can run the attacks directly from their environments, desktops."
"The tool's most valuable feature is performance."
"The Search Engineering feature is good."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"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."
"It allows us to concentrate solely on identified vulnerabilities without the hassle of additional setup."
"The most valuable feature for us is the support for testing Linux-based web server components."
"The solution is open source and has many small targetted penetration tests that have been written by many people that are useful. You can choose different subjects for the test, such as Oracle databases or Apache servers."
"The greatest advantage of Rapid7 Metasploit is that it is the only system that can directly exploit vulnerabilities on the Metasploit platform."
"You can't actually change your password after you've set it unless you go back into the administration account and you change it there. Thus, if you're locked out and don't remember your password, that's a thing."
"I had some issues with the JSON parameters where it found some strange vulnerabilities, but it didn't alert the person using it or me about these vulnerabilities, e.g., an error for SQL injection."
"It would be nice to have a feature to "retest" only a single vulnerability that the customer reports as patched, and delete it from the next scans since it has already been patched."
"Integration into other tools is very limited for Acunetix. While we're trying to incorporate a CI/CD process where we're integrating with JIRA and we're integrating with Jenkins and Chef, it becomes problematic. Other tools give you a high integration capability to connect into different solutions that you may already have, like JIRA."
"We have had issues during upgrades where their scans worked on some apps better with previous versions. Then, we had to work with their tech support, who were great, to get it fixed for the next version."
"Tools that would allow us to work more efficiently with the mobile environment, with Android and iOS."
"Acunetix needs to be dynamic with JavaScript code, unlike Netsparker which can scan complex agents."
"We want to see how much bandwidth usage it consumes. When we monitor traffic we have issues with the consumption and throttling of the traffic."
"I would like to see more capabilities, more functions, and more features. More types of attack vectors."
"There are numerous outdated exploits in their database that should be updated."
"Rapid7 Metasploit can add a GUI feature because it is only available online."
"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."
"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."
"Rapid7 Metasploit could be made easier for new users to learn."
"I think areas with shortcomings that need improvement are more integration and automation."
"The initial setup was a bit "tweaky" for the open-source version."
Acunetix is ranked 15th in Vulnerability Management with 26 reviews while Rapid7 Metasploit is ranked 12th in Vulnerability Management with 18 reviews. Acunetix is rated 7.6, while Rapid7 Metasploit is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of Acunetix writes "Fantastic reporting features hindered by slow scanning ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rapid7 Metasploit writes "Helps find vulnerabilities in a system to determine whether the system needs to be upgraded". Acunetix is most compared with OWASP Zap, Tenable.io Web Application Scanning, PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional, HCL AppScan and Rapid7 AppSpider, whereas Rapid7 Metasploit is most compared with Tenable Nessus, Pentera, Rapid7 InsightVM, Nucleus and Wireshark. See our Acunetix vs. Rapid7 Metasploit report.
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We monitor all Vulnerability Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.