Rabby and MetaMask cost nothing, they’re both non-custodial, and each one has a phone app to match the browser version. Line them up at a connect prompt and you’d struggle to tell them apart. Sign a single transaction and the gap opens up.
Go with Rabby if you spend your days on EVM chains, the Ethereum-compatible networks like Arbitrum, Base and Polygon, and you’d like your wallet to spell out each contract call before you agree to it. MetaMask makes more sense when your coins include Bitcoin, Solana or Tron, when Firefox is your browser, or when the card, staking and trading extras Consensys keeps bolting on actually appeal to you.
We’ve dug into what each one holds, how the signing screens behave, what a swap costs you, and who we’d send to which wallet. Every number here came off Rabby’s or MetaMask’s own pages in September 2026.
Table of contents
Rabby vs MetaMask at a Glance
One table, every difference we unpack further down.
Rabby vs MetaMask: Comparison Chart | |
|---|---|
| What it costs | Rabby is free to install. So is MetaMask. |
| Who builds it | Rabby comes from RabbyHub, a team its own audit reports file under the DeBank name. MetaMask belongs to Consensys. |
| Where it runs | Rabby: Chrome, Brave, Edge, plus iOS and Android. MetaMask adds Firefox to that same list. |
| Networks | Rabby sticks to EVM chains and integrates 80+ of them. MetaMask covers EVM chains and adds Bitcoin, Solana and Tron. |
| Code you can read | Rabby ships under the MIT license. MetaMask’s code is visible, but the license permits non-commercial use only. |
| How it guards a signature | Rabby simulates the call and its security engine grays out the Sign button on a risk. MetaMask shows alerts drawn partly from Blockaid, and you can click straight past them. |
| Swap cut | Rabby takes 0.25%, and nothing at all on eligible stablecoin and ETH pairs. MetaMask takes 0.875%. |
| Paying for gas | Rabby’s GasAccount settles fees on any chain it supports. MetaMask folds gas into swap quotes on five networks. |
| Token permissions | Rabby grants the exact amount a swap needs and revokes in batches. MetaMask Swaps asks for unlimited approvals. |
| Cold storage support | Rabby: 11 devices on the extension, 4 on the phone. MetaMask: 12 devices on the extension, 3 on the phone. |
| Everything else | Rabby adds watch-only addresses, Safe and Cobo Argus. MetaMask piles on a card, staking, perps, prediction markets and Snaps. |
| Who it suits | Rabby fits EVM regulars who approve contracts most days. MetaMask fits anyone who wants a single wallet for every big chain. |
So What Exactly Is Rabby Wallet?
Rabby’s a self-custodial wallet aimed at Ethereum and the rest of the EVM family. Self-custodial only means the private keys belong to you, the secret numbers that move your coins, which cuts both ways: no company can spend them, and no company can hand them back if you lose them. Rabby’s own phrasing is that it “never has access to your funds”, with everything held on your device.
Who’s actually behind it? The audit reports sitting in Rabby’s repository are filed under DeBank, the portfolio tracker built by the same crew.
You’ll find the extension on Chrome, Brave and Edge, and the app on both iOS and Android. Firefox users get nothing, and Rabby is blunt about why that matters: any Firefox add-on wearing its name “is fake and malicious”.
Source code for the extension lives on GitHub under the MIT license, so reading it, forking it or shipping your own build are all fair game. We think that matters more than it sounds, because it decides whether a wallet’s promises can be checked by anyone outside the company making them.
What Rabby Does Well
- It runs the contract call before you sign it, rewrites the result in plain words, and shows you what’s about to leave and arrive in your address.
- The security engine calls out dodgy token permissions, such as a spender that turns out to be a personal account instead of a contract, or one deployed within the past three days.
- Networks switch themselves when a dapp asks for a different chain, which saves a trip through the network menu.
- Batch revoke clears a pile of stale approvals together, rather than charging you one transaction per permission.
- GasAccount holds a prepaid balance for network fees on any chain Rabby supports, so claiming something on a chain you’ve never touched doesn’t start with bridging its native token.
- Watch-only addresses, Safe and Cobo Argus are all handled, handy when you follow a treasury or a multisig wallet.
And What Is MetaMask These Days?
For most people MetaMask was the first crypto wallet they ever opened, and Consensys has the figures to back it up: 100 million annual users and more than 10 years running. The company’s own line is that it’s “a web browser extension and mobile app that allows you to manage your Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, and other blockchain’s private keys”.
It has drifted a long way from being an Ethereum-only tool. Solana landed in July 2025, Bitcoin followed in December 2025, and a single account now spins up an EVM address, a Solana address and a Bitcoin address off one seed phrase, the 12 or 24 words that back the whole wallet up.
Already running it? Our MetaMask vs Trust Wallet and MetaMask vs Coinbase Wallet write-ups look at the other rivals people usually weigh up.
What MetaMask Brings
- Bitcoin, Solana and Tron sit natively beside your EVM assets in one account, which spares you juggling three separate apps.
- Alerts are switched on out of the box, labeled either “Warning” or “Malicious”, and assembled from on-chain analysis and partners that include Blockaid.
- Bridging happens inside the swap flow, routed via aggregators such as Li.fi and Socket, so moving a token to another chain is one job instead of two.
- Snaps are add-ons from outside developers that stretch MetaMask to networks and services it can’t reach on its own, though Consensys calls them third-party services and washes its hands of the liability.
- There’s a debit card, staking, perpetual futures, prediction markets and a dollar-pegged token called mUSD, if you’d rather your wallet did more than sit on coins.
- Twelve hardware wallets connect to the extension, and we rank the good ones in our guide to the best hardware wallets for MetaMask.
Security: Where Rabby and MetaMask Split
Neither wallet takes custody of anything, which means nobody else can spend your coins and nobody else can rescue them either. Your seed phrase and your password stay with you in both cases. We go through what that trade-off really costs in our piece on custodial vs non-custodial wallets.
Everything interesting happens on the signing screen, and that’s the screen where people lose money. Rabby simulates the transaction first, lays out precisely what’s leaving and entering your address, then runs its security engine across the result. Spot a risk and the Sign button goes dead until you hit “Ignore All” and take the blame yourself.
Alerts and simulations exist on MetaMask’s side too, partly courtesy of Blockaid, spread over 21 named networks. To its credit MetaMask admits the checks “do not guarantee detection of all threats”, and a flagged transaction is still yours to confirm. As a stop sign, that’s a good deal weaker than a grayed-out button.
Then there are token approvals. An approval hands a contract permission to spend your tokens, and it keeps working until you take it away. Rabby grants only what the swap in front of you needs and lets you revoke in batches; MetaMask Swaps asks for unlimited approvals instead.
Nobody here is spotless. Attackers drained Rabby’s Swap smart contract in October 2022, barely a month after the feature shipped, and Rabby’s advice was to “revoke all existing approvals on all chains for Rabby Swap”. If you’d never touched Swap, nothing happened to your wallet.
Audits are the one place where Rabby is plainly more transparent. Reports from SlowMist and Least Authority live in its GitHub repository, dated 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, free for anyone to open. MetaMask’s homepage mentions regular audits, but we couldn’t find a public archive of the reports anywhere.
Living With Rabby vs MetaMask Day to Day
Getting started feels the same in both. Each asks for a password, each shows you a 12-word seed phrase, and each says outright that it cannot get that phrase back for you. Put the words on paper and keep them away from your phone, your cloud notes and your inbox.
Two daily irritations disappear with Rabby. Chains flip over on their own when a dapp wants a different one, and your address gets scanned on integrated networks so tokens turn up without you importing them by hand. MetaMask still leaves plenty of that work to you, either through its “Additional networks” list or by pasting in an RPC URL.
Reach is where MetaMask pulls ahead. Firefox users can install it and can’t install Rabby, and it’s the wallet every dapp puts at the top, which really counts when a connect dialog only offers you three or four buttons. Rabby’s own developer README asks dapps to place a Rabby button next to the MetaMask one, and that request tells you plenty about how the ecosystem still works.
Face and fingerprint unlock work on both phone apps. Rabby’s mobile version throws in an encrypted iCloud or Google Drive copy of the seed phrase, locked behind your app password. Forget the password and Rabby can’t reset it, which leaves that backup dead in the water.
Which Coins and Chains Each Wallet Handles
EVM is the whole story for Rabby, and its help center doesn’t soften it: Bitcoin, Solana and Tron aren’t supported, and a Rabby address gets rejected if you try to receive funds over those networks. Anything EVM, though, is open season. Rabby natively integrates 80 or more networks, each with portfolio tracking, simulation and approval management attached.
Annoyingly, Rabby’s pages can’t agree on the number. “Over 90 networks” appears on one, “80+ networks” on another. Open Settings and then Integrated Chains inside the extension for the list that’s actually true today.
MetaMask’s supported list runs Ethereum, Bitcoin, Linea, Base, Solana, Tron, Polygon, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Monad, Robinhood Chain, OP, Sei, Avalanche, zkSync Era, MegaETH, HyperEVM and Tempo. Whatever misses the cut can go in by hand as a custom network with its own RPC URL. Snaps stretch it further again.
Those non-EVM chains arrive with strings attached. Solana accounts run on Infura and won’t take a custom RPC, you can’t import a Solana private key, and Ledger-based Solana accounts still can’t connect. Bitcoin accounts follow the Native SegWit derivation path and nothing else, so an imported one has to match.
Spread across several chains? Our roundup of the best decentralized crypto wallets weighs up the other multi-chain choices.
One rule covers both wallets and every chain: pick the wrong network or paste the wrong address and the funds are gone, with nobody able to reverse it. Read the wallet address and the chain before every single send.
What Rabby and MetaMask Really Cost You
Installing either one costs nothing. The bill arrives on every swap you make.
| Fee | Rabby | MetaMask |
|---|---|---|
| The wallet itself | Nothing | Nothing |
| Cut taken on a swap | 0.25% | 0.875% |
| Pairs that dodge the fee | Stablecoin and ETH pairs on the same chain | None that we could find |
| Charge for topping up gas | GasAccount adds nothing | Gas sits inside gasless swap quotes |
Rabby’s cut is 0.25% per swap at the time of writing (September 2026), already baked into the quote on screen. Eligible same-chain pairs escape it entirely, which covers stablecoin to stablecoin plus ETH to ETH DeFi tokens such as WETH and stETH. Anyone who parks funds in stablecoins between trades saves the most from that rule.
MetaMask asks 0.875% per swap, printed next to the quote rate and the network fee. More than triple, in other words, on the identical trade before gas enters the picture. Swap once a week and that gap starts to bite.
Gas gets treated differently as well. GasAccount settles fees on any chain Rabby supports and adds no service fee, sparing you the ritual of bridging a few dollars of some native token before you can claim anything. MetaMask’s gasless swaps pull a similar trick, but only across Ethereum Mainnet, BNB Smart Chain, Linea, Arbitrum and Base.
Those bolted-on MetaMask products have price tags of their own, all correct at the time of writing (September 2026). Its card runs at $0 a year on the free tier or $199 a year for the metal version, with the free tier charging 2% on ATM withdrawals and 1% on cross-border spending. Transaction Shield sits apart from that as a monthly subscription, covering up to $10,000 a month of transaction protection.
The Good Bits and the Annoying Bits
Where each wallet earns its keep, and where it doesn’t.
Rabby: Pros and Cons
MetaMask: Pros and Cons
So Which One Should You Install?
Approving contracts most days across Arbitrum, Base and Polygon? Rabby, without much hesitation. That simulation screen plus exact-amount approvals cut down the mistake that genuinely empties wallets, and 0.25% is the cheaper swap fee of the two.
Holding Bitcoin or Solana next to your ETH and wanting one app for the lot? MetaMask, because Rabby simply won’t take those coins.
New to this and mostly buying and sitting tight? We’d start you on MetaMask for the Firefox build, the broader dapp coverage and the on-ramps built in. Add a hardware wallet before the balance gets serious, and there’s nothing stopping you running both wallets together.
Rabby vs MetaMask FAQ
Which one is safer, Rabby or MetaMask?
Mostly. Both simulate what you’re about to sign and both flag contracts that look wrong, but Rabby kills the Sign button until you dismiss its warning, whereas MetaMask leaves you free to confirm regardless. Rabby also asks for the exact allowance a swap requires, while MetaMask Swaps requests an unlimited one. Neither has a clean history, mind you: attackers exploited Rabby’s Swap contract in October 2022.
Will Rabby store my BTC or SOL?
No. EVM networks are all Rabby handles, and its help center states outright that Bitcoin, Solana and Tron are excluded. Send funds over one of those networks to a Rabby address and it won’t be accepted. MetaMask picked up Solana in July 2025 and Bitcoin in December 2025.
Whose swaps cost less?
Rabby, comfortably. Its cut is 0.25%, dropping to zero on eligible same-chain stablecoin and ETH pairs, against 0.875% at MetaMask. Network gas is charged on top by both.
Can one seed phrase run both wallets?
Yes. Each derives its addresses from a standard 12 or 24-word seed phrase, so feeding your MetaMask phrase into Rabby produces identical addresses holding identical balances. Rabby’s own guidance says tokens, NFTs and staking positions carry on untouched through the move. Do it on a machine you trust, and never type those words into a website.
Is there a Rabby build for Firefox?
No, and this one has a sting. Chrome, Brave and Edge are the only browsers Rabby’s extension supports, and Rabby warns that a Firefox add-on using its name is fake and malicious. MetaMask, by contrast, publishes a genuine Firefox extension.
Is MetaMask really open source?
Not really. The extension’s code is there on GitHub for anyone to read, yet the license is a Consensys copyright allowing non-commercial use only, a category it defines as covering products with fewer than 10,000 monthly active users. Rabby’s extension carries the MIT license, which imposes no ceiling like that.
Will either one pair with a Ledger or Trezor?
They do. Ledger, Trezor, GridPlus, OneKey, Keystone, NGRAVE ZERO, BitBox02, CoolWallet, AirGap Vault, imToken and imKey all pair with Rabby’s extension. MetaMask’s extension covers much the same ground and adds Arculus, D’Cent and Keycard Shell. Your options shrink on mobile whichever one you pick.
Our Verdict: Rabby or MetaMask?
Anyone signing regularly on EVM chains is better off with Rabby. Transactions are explained more clearly, the signature is blocked until you acknowledge a risk, approvals cover only what the swap needs, the fee is 0.25% rather than 0.875%, and the whole thing ships under a genuine open-source license with the audits out in the open.
Coverage is where MetaMask takes it. One account holding Bitcoin, Solana and Tron, a Firefox build, more dapps that recognize it, more hardware devices supported and a heap of extra products on the side. Own anything outside the EVM world and the decision has been made for you.
Honestly, keeping both installed is a perfectly sane answer. Feed the same seed phrase into each, reach for MetaMask when a connect button offers nothing else, and switch to Rabby whenever you’re staring at a transaction you don’t fully follow.
Treat everything above as general information, not financial, legal, or investment advice. Features and prices shift; check the vendor’s official page before you buy.
