We performed a comparison between Rapid7 Metasploit and Tenable Nessus based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Vulnerability Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable features of the solution are the scripts, the modules, and the tools that the Rapid7 Metasploit framework has."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"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 option to generate phishing emails has proven to be very valuable in understanding the behavior of users."
"The reporting on the solution is good."
"It allows us to concentrate solely on identified vulnerabilities without the hassle of additional setup."
"It is scalable. It's in line with our needs."
"All of the features are great."
"The most valuable feature of Tenable Nessus is the self-updating engine."
"Out of the box, the product works well for us, so it's not a tool that we need to customize very much."
"The automatic scanner and scheduler are pretty cool."
"The trial version is very good for testing whether it will suit your needs."
"Once you get past the initial implementation, the solution is very stable."
"The solution is easy to understand for users because instructions are included on the platform."
"The most valuable features of Tenable Nessus are the scanning option. Advanced scanning is highly useful. The offline config audits and application assessments are useful."
"We have around 500 virtual machines. Therefore, we conduct monthly scans and open tickets for our developers to address identified vulnerabilities. These scans cover the servers, other network equipment, and appliances in our infrastructure."
"Rapid7 Metasploit could be made easier for new users to learn."
"Rapid7 Metasploit can add a GUI feature because it is only available online."
"At the time I was using it, the graphical user interface needed some improvements."
"Metasploit cannot be installed on a machine with an antivirus."
"The initial setup was a bit "tweaky" for the open-source version."
"I think areas with shortcomings that need improvement are more integration and automation."
"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 user-friendly and has room for improvement."
"I would like to see an improvement in the ranking of high, medium and low vulnerability."
"The problems I faced with Tenable Nessus were related to its dashboard's customization capabilities and its ability to provide data to third-party sources."
"Pricing is one of the most important features, and it is something that they can improve on."
"The price could be reduced."
"I would like to see more on the automation side."
"The reporting feature needs to be improved."
"The price could be more reasonable. I used the free Nessus version in my lab with which you can only scan 16 IP addresses. If I wanted to put it in the lab in my network at work, and I'm doing a test project that has over 30 nodes in it, I can't use the free version of Nessus to scan it because there are only 16 IP addresses. I can't get an accurate scan. The biggest thing with all the cybersecurity tools out there nowadays, especially in 2020, is that there's a rush to get a lot of skilled cybersecurity analysts out there. Some of these companies need to realize that a lot of us are working from home and doing proof of concepts, and some of them don't even offer trials, or you get a trial and it is only 16 IP addresses. I can't really do anything with it past 16. I'm either guessing or I'm doing double work to do my scans. Let's say there was a license for 50 users or 50 IP addresses. I would spend about 200 bucks for that license to accomplish my job. This is the biggest complaint I have as of right now with all cybersecurity tools, including Rapid7, out there, especially if I'm in a company that is trying to build its cybersecurity program. How am I going to tell my boss, who has no real budget of what he needs to build his cybersecurity program, to go spend over $100,000 for a tool he has never seen, whereas, it would pack the punch if I could say, "Let me spend 200 bucks for a 50 user IP address license of this product, do a proof of concept to scan 50 nodes, and provide the reason for why we need it." I've been a director, and now I'm an ISO. When I was a director, I had a budget for an IT department, so I know how budgets work. As an ISO, the only thing that's missing from my C-level is I don't have to deal with employees and budgets, but I have everything else. It's hard for me to build the program and say, "Hey, I need these tools." If I can't get a trial, I would scratch that off the list and find something else. I'm trying to set up Tenable.io to do external PCI scans. The documentation says to put in your IP addresses or your external IP addresses. However, if the IP address is not routable, then it says that you have to use an internal agent to scan. This means that you set up a Nessus agent internally and scan, which makes sense. However, it doesn't work because when you use the plugin and tell it that it is a PCI external, it says, "You cannot use an internal agent to scan external." The documentation needs to be a little bit more clear about that. It needs to say if you're using the PCI external plugin, all IP addresses must be external and routable. It should tell the person who's setting it up, "Wait a minute. If you have an MPLS network and you're in a multi-tenant environment and the people who hold the network schema only provide you with the IP addresses just for your tenant, then you are not going to know what the actual true IP address that Tenable needs to do a PCI scan." I've been working on Tenable.io to set up PCI scans for the last ten days. I have been going back and forth to the network thinking I need this or that only to find out that I'm teaching their team, "Hey, you know what, guys? I need you to look past your MPLS network. I need you to go to the edge's edge. Here's who you need to ask to give me the whitelist to allow here." I had the blurb that says the plugin for external PCI must be reachable, and you cannot use an internal agent. I could have cut a few days because I thought I had it, but then when I ran it, it said that you can't run it this way. I wasted a few hours in a day. In terms of new features, it doesn't require new features. It is a tool that has been out there for years. It is used in the cybersecurity community. It has got the CV database in it, and there are other plugins that you could pass through. It has got APIs you can attach to it. They can just improve the database and continue adding to the database and the plugins to make sure those don't have false positives. If you're a restaurant and you focus on fried chicken, you have no business doing hamburgers."
"There could be an integration between Tenable Nessus and other Tenable products. It will help us manage all the solutions using one dashboard."
Rapid7 Metasploit is ranked 11th in Vulnerability Management with 18 reviews while Tenable Nessus is ranked 3rd in Vulnerability Management with 75 reviews. Rapid7 Metasploit is rated 7.6, while Tenable Nessus is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Rapid7 Metasploit writes "Helps find vulnerabilities in a system to determine whether the system needs to be upgraded". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tenable Nessus writes "Unlimited assets for one price and quick, agentless results". Rapid7 Metasploit is most compared with Pentera, Acunetix, Rapid7 InsightVM, Nucleus and Wireshark, whereas Tenable Nessus is most compared with Qualys VMDR, Rapid7 InsightVM, Tenable Security Center, Tenable Vulnerability Management and Microsoft Intune. See our Rapid7 Metasploit vs. Tenable Nessus report.
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