2026 review

Censys review

Internet intelligence and attack surface platform

Quick facts

Category: Threat and vulnerability intelligence APIs, IP intelligence and reputation APIs
Website: censys.com
Pricing starts at: Prepaid credits from $100
Free tier: Free tier with limited searches and lookup API access
How usage is billed: Credits, pages, requests, records, compute units, subscriptions, and browser-time blocks are not interchangeable.
Enterprise plan: Core and Adversary Investigation are custom priced

What Censys is

Censys delivers internet-wide scanning, certificate intelligence, and external attack surface discovery for security teams and researchers.

Compared in: Threat and vulnerability intelligence APIs, IP intelligence and reputation APIs.

Strengths

Internet-wide scanning data
Certificate and asset intelligence
External attack surface discovery

Limitations

Not focused on domain availability
WHOIS and registrar context are secondary
Primarily for security use cases

Pricing summary

Figures come from published Censys sources checked on 2026-07-29, linked under Sources. Plans and limits change, so confirm them with the vendor before you buy.

Plan	Censys	DomScan
Free tier	Free tier with limited searches and lookup API access	Free: 10,000 credits/month
Entry paid plan	Prepaid credits from $100	Pay-as-you-go from $10
Enterprise	Core and Adversary Investigation are custom priced	Custom pricing

Credits, pages, requests, records, compute units, subscriptions, and browser-time blocks are not interchangeable.

See the full Censys pricing breakdown

Who Censys suits

Good fit

Stay with Censys if internet-wide scanning, certificate intelligence, and exposure management are your core security needs.

Weaker fit

You need domain records, not host and certificate scans
You want self-serve pricing without enterprise contracts
You need WHOIS and availability in the same API
You are building domain tools, not exposure management

Censys vs DomScan

Feature availability for Censys comes from its published product documentation. DomScan credit costs come from its published endpoint pricing.

Feature	Censys	DomScan
Free tier	Limited	✓ 10,000/month
Domain availability	✓	✓
WHOIS data	Limited	✓
DNS lookup	✓	✓
Domain valuation	−	✓
Brand monitoring	−	✓
MCP/AI integration	−	✓
Bulk operations	✓	✓

DomScan products for the same jobs

These DomScan products cover the categories where Censys competes. Each shows its published credit cost per request.

Website Vulnerability Scanner Find exposed software, risky configurations, and known affected versions across a public website. Every result explains what was checked, why it matched, and how strong the evidence is. Credits per request: 8 to 12 SSL Certificates Get SSL certificate information including issuer, validity, and security grade. Credits per request: 2 IP Geolocation Get geolocation data for an IP address including country, city, and ISP. Credits per request: 1 Domain Reputation Check domain reputation across multiple threat intelligence sources. Credits per request: 3

Verdict

Main strength of Censys: Internet-wide scanning data. Main trade-off: Not focused on domain availability. If you need several kinds of domain, DNS or web data from one API key, DomScan publishes the credit cost of every endpoint and includes 10,000 free credits each month.

Compare with DomScan → Visit Censys

Frequently asked questions

What is Censys?

Censys delivers internet-wide scanning, certificate intelligence, and external attack surface discovery for security teams and researchers.

How much does Censys cost?

Published pricing checked on 2026-07-29. Free tier: Free tier with limited searches and lookup API access. Entry paid plan: Prepaid credits from $100. Enterprise: Core and Adversary Investigation are custom priced.

When is Censys the better choice?

Stay with Censys if internet-wide scanning, certificate intelligence, and exposure management are your core security needs.

How does Censys pricing compare with DomScan?

Censys and DomScan count usage in different units, so there is no exact per-request comparison. DomScan includes 10,000 free credits every month and publishes the credit cost of every endpoint, so you can price the operations you plan to run.