Neither wallet charges you a penny to install, both hand you the keys rather than holding them, and each one ships as a browser add-on with a matching phone app. Self-custodial is the label, and what it means in practice is that the private keys sit with you. Nobody at Consensys or Rainbow can spend your coins, and nobody there can hand them back either.
Got Bitcoin, Solana or Tron in the mix, or fancy a wallet that doubles as a card, a savings pot and a futures desk? That’s MetaMask. Rainbow suits you better if Ethereum and its EVM cousins, the Ethereum-compatible chains such as Base, Arbitrum and Polygon, are where you actually spend your time, and if you’d like the code behind your wallet to be readable by anyone who cares to look.
We’ve gone through what each one will hold, how the signing screens treat you, what a normal day with each feels like, and where the money goes. Every number below came off MetaMask’s or Rainbow’s own pages in September 2026.
Table of contents
MetaMask vs Rainbow at a Glance
Everything we argue about further down, squeezed into one table.
MetaMask vs Rainbow: Comparison Chart | |
|---|---|
| What it costs | MetaMask installs for nothing. So does Rainbow. |
| Who builds it | MetaMask belongs to Consensys. Rainbow is built by a team that says it came out of wallets including MetaMask. |
| Where it runs | MetaMask: Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Brave, plus iOS and Android. Rainbow adds Arc and Safari, and covers every Chromium browser. |
| Networks | MetaMask names 18, Bitcoin, Solana and Tron among them, and takes custom RPCs on top. Rainbow lists 24, every one of them EVM. |
| Code you can read | MetaMask’s source is visible, but its licence covers non-commercial use only. Rainbow ships both repositories under GPL-3.0. |
| Warnings before you sign | MetaMask switches alerts on for you and tags a request Warning or Malicious, partly using Blockaid. Rainbow’s support site documents nothing comparable. |
| Swap cut | MetaMask takes 0.875%. Rainbow charges a Rainbow Fee it shows you on the review screen without ever publishing the rate. |
| Cold storage support | MetaMask: 12 devices on the extension, 3 on the phone. Rainbow: Ledger and Trezor. |
| Backing up | MetaMask gives you a secret recovery phrase and leaves the rest to you. Rainbow offers the same phrase plus an optional iCloud or Google Drive copy. |
| Getting anything back | MetaMask has card cashback and rewards points. Rainbow pays RNBW on trades, and staking tiers return part of your swap fees. |
| Everything else | MetaMask piles on a card, a Money Account, perps, prediction markets, tokenized stocks and Snaps. Rainbow has perps, prediction markets, stocks, commodities, watch-only wallets and a command menu. |
| Who it suits | MetaMask fits anyone who wants one wallet for every big chain. Rainbow fits EVM regulars who care about open code and a quicker interface. |
So What Is MetaMask Now?
Consensys makes MetaMask, and its own wording calls it “a web browser extension and mobile app that allows you to manage your Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, and other blockchain’s private keys”. For most people it was the first crypto wallet they ever opened. That head start still shows up every time a dapp puts its button at the top of the connect dialog.
The numbers Consensys quotes are “100MM+ downloads” and more than 100 million annual users. Its homepage now opens with “Where your money lives”, which is a long way from a plain Ethereum key manager.
Solana turned up on July 8, 2025, Bitcoin on December 15, 2025. Already comparing other options? Our MetaMask vs Coinbase Wallet and MetaMask vs Trust Wallet write-ups cover the usual rivals.
What MetaMask Brings
- One account holds Bitcoin, Solana and Tron next to everything EVM, which spares you flipping between three apps.
- Warnings are turned on out of the box, tagged either “Warning” or “Malicious”, and assembled from on-chain analysis and partners that include Blockaid.
- Swapping works across 18 named networks, and the MetaMask cut sits right beside the quote so you can weigh it up first.
- Twelve hardware wallets pair with the extension, and the ones worth buying are ranked in our guide to the best hardware wallets for MetaMask.
- Snaps are add-ons from outside developers that stretch MetaMask into services it can’t reach alone, though Consensys washes its hands of the liability.
- There’s a debit card, a Money Account advertised at up to 4%, perpetual futures running to 50x leverage, prediction markets and tokenized stocks, if you’d rather your wallet did more than sit still.
And What About Rainbow?
Rainbow’s own line is that it’s “an open source, self-custodial wallet for Ethereum and Ethereum based cryptocurrencies and collectibles”. These days the homepage shouts “Trade Any Market from Your Phone” at you first, with “Your keys. Your crypto.” tucked in underneath.
Both the phone app and the extension are published under GPL-3.0. That’s not a footnote to us. A licence of that kind is what lets somebody outside the company test whether the wallet does what it claims.
As for who’s behind it, Rainbow says its team “consists of world-class developers who have years of experience working on some of the most trusted wallets in the world, like MetaMask”. The app came first and still feels the more finished half of the product, while the extension reaches browsers MetaMask doesn’t.
What Rainbow Does Well
- You can install the extension on Chrome, Brave, Edge, Arc, Firefox, Safari and any other Chromium browser, across Mac, Windows and Linux.
- GPL-3.0 sits on both repositories, so reading the code, forking it or building your own copy are all fair game.
- RainbowRouter is Rainbow’s own contract, deployed on every network it supports, and it handles both swapping and bridging.
- Trades pay out RNBW, and staking that RNBW hands back a slice of your swap fees, so the people trading most claw back the most.
- Impersonation mode watches an address and connects it to a dapp, handy for following a treasury, but signing and sending are off the table.
- Hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K and a command menu opens onto Send, Swap, Connected Apps, Settings and your NFTs, no screen-hunting required.
Security: Where MetaMask and Rainbow Part Ways
Custody isn’t in question with either one. Rainbow’s own phrasing is blunt: “We at Rainbow don’t have access to your wallet, and we can’t control it.” What that trade-off really costs you is something we go through in our piece on custodial vs non-custodial wallets.
The split shows up on the signing screen, which is exactly where wallets get emptied. MetaMask has alerts running by default in the extension and the app, marking a request “Verified”, “Warning” or “Malicious”. Those tags are “powered by a combination of on-chain analysis, ecosystem intelligence, and security partners including Blockaid, along with other threat detection providers”.
Credit where it’s due, MetaMask admits the limits itself: “Even though a warning is displayed, you can still confirm the transaction if you choose to.” Coverage runs to 21 named networks, Bitcoin and Tron included.
Rainbow has nothing on record that does the same job. Its safety articles are about dodging scams and looking after your phrase, not about screening the thing you’re signing. Sign contracts you don’t fully follow and that’s a hole you’ll feel.
Where Rainbow pulls ahead is the licence. GPL-3.0 covers both repositories, and anyone who wants to audit the code can. MetaMask’s extension repository carries a Consensys copyright granting only a “Non-Commercial Use” licence, a category it defines to include use where “the number of monthly active users of the Resulting Program across all versions thereof and platforms globally do not exceed 10,000 at any time”.
Named third-party audits? Neither company publishes one, so neither walks away clean. What Rainbow offers instead is the argument that open code speaks for itself, or as its safety page has it, “Being open source is a significant factor that enhances the safety of Rainbow.”
Living With MetaMask vs Rainbow Day to Day
Getting started feels much the same in both. Each one makes a wallet, shows you a secret phrase and tells you straight that it can’t fetch that phrase back, and Rainbow spells it out: “If you don’t back up your wallet, then there is no way to recover it.”
There’s one backup step Rainbow has that MetaMask doesn’t. An encrypted copy of your phrase can go to iCloud on an iPhone or Google Drive on Android. Paper, a metal plate and a password manager are still on the table.
Day to day, we’d call Rainbow the nicer app to use. You send with a “Hold to Send” control, you receive through “My QR Code”, and in the extension almost everything is a couple of keystrokes away in the Cmd+K menu. MetaMask has no shortcut layer to match that.
Browsers go Rainbow’s way as well. Safari and Arc both work alongside the usual four, whereas MetaMask’s install guide only walks you through Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Brave. Both wallets have a Firefox asterisk, mind you: Rainbow has temporarily switched off hardware wallet connections there, and MetaMask warns that Firefox v112 onwards broke the way it talks to a Ledger.
Custom networks are MetaMask’s win. Any chain with an RPC URL, the address your wallet uses to reach a network, goes in on either the extension or the app. Rainbow keeps the feature on desktop and says custom networks “are NOT supported in the mobile app”.
Which Coins and Chains Each Wallet Takes
EVM is the whole story for Rainbow. The list runs Ethereum, Base, Optimism, Arbitrum, Zora, Blast, ApeChain, Polygon, Avalanche, Degen Chain, BNB Smart Chain, Ink, Berachain, Gravity, Unichain, Sonic, Linea, Abstract, WorldChain, Scroll, Gnosis, Katana, ZkSync and HyperEVM. Count them and you get 24 chains, with Bitcoin, Solana and Tron nowhere in sight.
Rainbow doesn’t soften it either, telling you the wallet “only supports ETH and Ethereum-based assets” and warning you off sending anything else to your address. The networks page repeats that warning for any chain it hasn’t listed.
MetaMask’s own roster covers 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 goes in by hand as a custom network with its own RPC URL.
Bitcoin on MetaMask comes with strings attached. Only the native SegWit derivation path works for now, that being the rule which turns your phrase into addresses, and Taproot is listed as coming later. Your addresses won’t line up if the Bitcoin wallet you already use follows a different path.
Holding coins across several chains? The other multi-chain options get weighed up in our roundup of the best decentralized crypto wallets.
Whichever you pick, one rule doesn’t bend. Choose the wrong network or paste the wrong address and the money is gone, and nobody can reverse it for you. Read the wallet address and check the chain before every single send.
What MetaMask and Rainbow Actually Cost
Installing either one is free. The bill turns up when you start trading.
| Cost | MetaMask | Rainbow |
|---|---|---|
| The wallet itself | Nothing | Nothing |
| Cut taken on a swap | 0.875% | A Rainbow Fee, rate unpublished |
| Getting fees back | Card cashback and rewards points | 25% to 100% in RNBW, depending on your tier |
| Card | $0 or $199 a year | There isn’t one |
At least MetaMask tells you the rate. Its swap screen prints “MetaMask fee: 0.875%” at the time of writing (September 2026), sitting next to the quote rate and the network fee.
Rainbow keeps quiet, which annoys us. All its support page will say is that the Rainbow Fee “is the percentage/amount that Rainbow applies” and that it “will always be visible for you to review”. By the time you see the figure you’re already on the review screen, too late to go shopping.
In exchange, Rainbow gives you a route to claw the fee back. Stake RNBW and the tiers kick in: Silver at 5,000 RNBW hands back 25% of your fees, Gold at 10,000 returns 50%, Diamond at 15,000 returns 75%, and Black at 20,000 returns the lot at 100%. Cashback lands as staked RNBW, and pulling out costs a 10% exit fee that gets shared among everyone who stayed.
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 on the Metal one. Free-tier ATM withdrawals take 2% and cross-border spending takes 1%, while Metal drops the ATM charge up to $1,200 a month.
The Good Bits and the Irritating Bits
Where each one earns its keep, and where it doesn’t.
MetaMask: Pros and Cons
Rainbow: Pros and Cons
So Which One Should You Install?
Bitcoin or Solana sitting beside your ETH, and you want one app for the lot? MetaMask, because Rainbow simply won’t take those coins.
Spending your days on Ethereum and its EVM networks, and bothered about whether the code is genuinely open? Rainbow, on the strength of GPL-3.0, the longer browser list and that Cmd+K menu.
New to this and mostly buying and sitting tight? We’d point you at MetaMask, for the warnings that arrive switched on and the fact that more dapps recognise it. Get a hardware wallet in place before the balance gets serious, and don’t forget that one phrase can run both wallets at once.
MetaMask vs Rainbow FAQ
Which one is safer, MetaMask or Rainbow?
Depends what you mean. Rainbow wins on transparency, since GPL-3.0 covers both its repositories and MetaMask’s licence stops at non-commercial use. Protection while you’re actually signing goes the other way: MetaMask ships alerts turned on and tags a request Warning or Malicious, and Rainbow has nothing on record that does the same. Neither firm publishes a named third-party audit, so treat both claims with a bit of caution.
Will Rainbow store my BTC or SOL?
No. Twenty-four EVM networks are the whole list, and Rainbow says outright that it “only supports ETH and Ethereum-based assets”. Send Bitcoin, Solana or Tron to a Rainbow address and you won’t get it back. MetaMask picked up Solana in July 2025 and Bitcoin that December.
Whose swaps cost less?
Nobody can say, and that’s rather the point. MetaMask puts a flat 0.875% on the screen. Rainbow only promises that its fee “will always be visible for you to review” once you reach the review step, and publishes no rate anywhere. Stake RNBW and between 25% and 100% of what you paid comes back, depending on the tier you’ve reached.
Can one seed phrase run both wallets?
It can. Each derives EVM addresses from a standard secret phrase, so feeding your MetaMask phrase into Rainbow produces identical addresses holding identical balances. Do it on a machine you trust, and never type those words into a website.
Does Rainbow pair with a Ledger?
Yes, and with Trezor too. The devices Rainbow names are the Ledger Nano S Plus, Nano X and Stax, with Bluetooth pairing on the Nano X, Stax and Flex. Worth knowing before you plan around it: hardware wallet connections are temporarily switched off in the Firefox extension.
Is MetaMask really open source?
Not really. Anyone can read the extension’s code on GitHub, yet the licence is a Consensys copyright permitting non-commercial use only, a category defined to cover products with no more than 10,000 monthly active users. GitHub files that licence as Other rather than a recognised open-source one. Rainbow’s repositories carry GPL-3.0, which imposes no ceiling like that.
Which extension covers more browsers?
Rainbow, comfortably. Chrome, Brave, Edge, Arc, Firefox, Safari and every other Chromium browser are all listed, on Mac, Windows and Linux alike. MetaMask’s install guide walks you through Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Brave and stops there.
Our Verdict: MetaMask or Rainbow?
Coverage is where MetaMask takes it. Bitcoin, Solana and Tron in a single account, custom networks wherever you need them, twelve hardware wallets on the extension, a swap rate printed in public and warnings that work before you change a single setting.
Openness and feel belong to Rainbow. Its GPL-3.0 licence is the genuine article, the extension turns up in more browsers, and Cmd+K makes the everyday jobs quicker. Never leave the EVM world and that’s a trade worth making.
Nothing says you have to pick. Import the one phrase into each, open MetaMask when a connect button offers nothing else, and let Rainbow handle the chains and the days when you want the faster interface.
This article is for general information only and is not financial, legal, or investment advice. Prices and features change; check the vendor’s official page before buying.
