Censys vs urlscan.io

Censys vs urlscan.io

Domain API Comparison

Overview

Censys

Internet Intelligence and Attack Surface Platform

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

Community tier with limited monthly queries

urlscan.io

URL scanning, phishing analysis, and brand monitoring API

urlscan.io is built for scanning web pages, indexing observed infrastructure, and detecting phishing or brand abuse from captured page data.

Community plan available

Pricing Comparison

Pricing Censys urlscan.io
Free Tier Community tier with limited monthly queries Community plan available
Paid Plans Individual plans from $100/month Paid API and search plans
Enterprise Custom team and enterprise plans Business and enterprise options
TLD Coverage Full IPv4/IPv6 coverage Scan corpus and search index coverage

Feature Comparison

Feature Censys urlscan.io
Free Tier Limited Included
API Access Included Included
Bulk Operations Included Limited
Real-time Data Included Included
WHOIS Data Limited Limited
DNS Lookup Included Included
Domain Valuation Not Included Not Included
Brand Monitoring Not Included Included
MCP/AI Integration Not Included Not Included

Which is Better?

Choose Censys if you need

  • Comprehensive internet scanning
  • Certificate and asset intelligence
  • External attack surface discovery

Choose urlscan.io if you need

  • Excellent page rendering and phishing investigation workflow
  • Strong brand-monitoring and search capabilities
  • Helpful for URL-centric security operations

Consider DomScan Instead

DomScan offers the best of both worlds with comprehensive features and developer-friendly pricing.

  • Free tier: 10,000 credits/month (no credit card)
  • 1,500+ TLDs supported
  • MCP integration for AI assistants
  • Domain valuation, brand monitoring, OSINT
DomScan vs Censys DomScan vs urlscan.io

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