MetaMask has been the front door to Ethereum for most of its users since 2016, and network effects keep it there: every dapp tests against it, every guide assumes it, and every hardware wallet integrates with it. That ubiquity is a genuine advantage — nothing else is guaranteed to work everywhere.
What Snaps changed
The Snaps system lets third parties extend MetaMask with support for non-EVM chains, custom transaction insights and account abstraction features. Bitcoin, Solana and Cosmos support all arrive this way. It is a reasonable architecture, and it means the security of a Snap is the developer's responsibility rather than MetaMask's — install them as deliberately as you would a browser extension.
Where it costs you
The built-in swap charges roughly 0.875% on top of the underlying DEX fee, which is several times what routing through 1inch or a DEX directly would cost. On a $5,000 swap that is around $44 for convenience. Bridge fees follow a similar pattern. If you swap regularly, using an aggregator instead is the single largest saving available to a MetaMask user.
Security posture
Non-custodial with standard seed handling, hardware wallet support and, since 2023, transaction simulation and phishing detection through Blockaid. Those protections are real but arrived years after the losses that motivated them, and they remain less thorough than Rabby's.
Who should use it
Everyone needs it installed for compatibility. For daily use on EVM chains, Rabby provides better safety information for the same actions, and swaps should be routed through an aggregator rather than the built-in feature.