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Censys vs Shodan

Both scan the internet and index exposed devices; Censys adds attack-surface management and adversary tracking, Shodan is the cheaper, self-serve option.

Side by side

Censys Shodan
Vendor Censys Shodan
Pricing model Quote only Subscription
Free tier Yes Yes
Deployment Cloud Cloud
Open source No No
Best for Security teams that need attack-surface discovery plus adversary-infrastructure tracking from the same scan data. Security researchers and teams tracking their own organization's internet-exposed devices.
Pricing

Named self-serve tiers (Core, Adversary Investigation, Security Operations) are published with feature limits, but dollar prices require a sales quote; a free account with basic search is available.

Core contact sales
Adversary Investigation contact sales
Security Operations contact sales

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Published self-serve tiers: a one-time Membership unlock, then monthly Freelancer, Small Business, and Corporate plans, plus custom Enterprise.

Membership $49 one-time
Freelancer $69/month
Small Business $359/month
Corporate $1,099/month

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Features
  • Continuous internet-wide scanning and indexing
  • Attack Surface Management for unknown/shadow-IT exposure
  • Adversary infrastructure tracking and investigation
  • Critical-infrastructure and ICS exposure monitoring
  • Enrichment APIs for SIEM/SOAR integration
  • Certificate and service metadata search
  • Continuous internet-wide crawling and indexing
  • Search by service, banner, geography, and organization
  • Shodan Monitor for real-time exposure alerts on owned assets
  • REST API for programmatic access
  • Browser extensions for on-site exposure checks
  • Device and industrial control system discovery

Verdict

Censys and Shodan both continuously crawl and index what is publicly reachable on the internet — hosts, certificates, exposed services — and both are used the same two ways: defensively, to find your own organization's exposure, and by researchers tracking adversary infrastructure. The difference is less about the raw scan data and more about what is built on top of it and how you pay for it.

Censys packages its index into Attack Surface Management, which automatically discovers and monitors an organization's internet-facing assets including unknown or shadow-IT exposures, plus a separate module for tracking adversary-hosted infrastructure and a third for critical-infrastructure and industrial-control-system exposure. Shodan stays closer to being a search engine over the same kind of data, with Shodan Monitor for real-time alerts when something new becomes reachable, a web search interface, and browser extensions that flag exposure on sites you're currently visiting.

Choose Censys if

  • You want automated discovery of unknown or shadow-IT assets, not just a search box over the index.
  • You need a dedicated module for tracking adversary infrastructure or monitoring critical-infrastructure and ICS exposure.
  • Budget allows for a quoted enterprise plan and you want enrichment API calls built for SIEM/SOAR pipelines.

Choose Shodan if

  • You want published, self-serve pricing you can start on today without a sales conversation.
  • Your use case is closer to ad hoc search and research than continuous automated asset management.
  • A smaller team or individual researcher needs full search access without an enterprise contract — Shodan's one-time Membership unlock and Freelancer plan are built for that.

What they share

Both are cloud-only scanning platforms with REST APIs, both surface certificate and service metadata, and both name each other as the obvious alternative. Neither answers the noise-filtering question GreyNoise is built for — "is this scanning traffic targeted at me" is a different question from "what is exposed."

The honest caveat

Censys's tiers (Core, Adversary Investigation, Security Operations) are named and feature-limited on its pricing page, but the dollar amounts are quote-only, so the real cost gap between the two tools is hard to judge without a sales call. Shodan is the one to trial first if cost transparency matters more than the extra modules.

Last reviewed September 22, 2026

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