Shodan Alternative: Shodan Pricing, Censys vs Shodan, and What Actually Replaces It

Shodan is a search engine over scanned ports and service banners. If you are shopping for a Shodan alternative, it is almost never because the scanning is bad. It is because the plan tiers do not match how your team buys, because Censys keeps its prices behind a sales call, or because what you actually owe somebody at the end of the week is a document and Shodan hands you query results.

This page separates those three problems, because only one of them is ours to solve.

See pricing

Competitors named.
Described from published terms.
Our own limits stated.
Nothing here is sponsored.

Start with what Shodan is genuinely better at.

Shodan crawls the routable internet, connects to open ports, records the banner the service returns, and indexes the result. That gives you something no records-based tool can give you: the ability to ask a question about the whole internet at once. Every host in a given country running a particular camera firmware. Every exposed instance of a database version that shipped a bad default. Nothing in this category answers that better.

It is also the reference tool for a specific kind of discovery. If an asset of yours is listening on a port and you did not know it existed, Shodan is how you find out, because the discovery starts from the observed service rather than from a name someone remembered to write down. Censys does the same job with a different index and a stricter data model.

We do not do any of that, and it is worth being blunt about why: we never connect to the subject at all. Collection here is passive, from authoritative public records, which means we can tell you what an organization has published about itself and cannot tell you what port 8080 was serving on Tuesday. If your question is the second one, buy Shodan and stop reading.

Shodan, Censys and a report-first tool, side by side.

Three tools that get shortlisted together and are shaped for three different questions.

	Shodan	Censys	Osintpro
Collection method	Active scanning of ports and banners	Active scanning, plus certificate and DNS indexes	Passive reads of public records only
Starting question	Which hosts on the internet look like this	Which hosts and certificates belong to this org	What can be established about this named subject
Does it touch the subject	Yes, it connects to the host	Yes, it connects to the host	No. The domain is never contacted or probed
Native output	Search results and raw JSON	Search results, raw JSON, dashboards	A report, exported as PDF or DOCX
Evidence on a finding	The banner and the scan timestamp	The observation record and scan timestamp	Raw record, source endpoint and UTC retrieval time
Scope record	Not part of the model	Not part of the model	Declared before collection, stamped on the report header
Who can run it unaided	An analyst comfortable with query filters	An analyst comfortable with query filters	A risk or procurement reviewer, on their first case
Published price	$49 one-time, or $69, $359, $1,099 a month	Not published. Credit packs from a $100 minimum	$149, $449 or $1,190 a month per plan
Priced by	Data volume and monitored IPs, not seats	Consumed credits	Seats and cases a month
Internet-wide device search	Best in category	Very strong	Not what we do. If this is your need, stay.

Collection method

Shodan: Active scanning of ports and banners
Censys: Active scanning, plus certificate and DNS indexes
Osintpro: Passive reads of public records only

Starting question

Shodan: Which hosts on the internet look like this
Censys: Which hosts and certificates belong to this org
Osintpro: What can be established about this named subject

Does it touch the subject

Shodan: Yes, it connects to the host
Censys: Yes, it connects to the host
Osintpro: No. The domain is never contacted or probed

Native output

Shodan: Search results and raw JSON
Censys: Search results, raw JSON, dashboards
Osintpro: A report, exported as PDF or DOCX

Evidence on a finding

Shodan: The banner and the scan timestamp
Censys: The observation record and scan timestamp
Osintpro: Raw record, source endpoint and UTC retrieval time

Scope record

Shodan: Not part of the model
Censys: Not part of the model
Osintpro: Declared before collection, stamped on the report header

Who can run it unaided

Shodan: An analyst comfortable with query filters
Censys: An analyst comfortable with query filters
Osintpro: A risk or procurement reviewer, on their first case

Published price

Shodan: $49 one-time, or $69, $359, $1,099 a month
Censys: Not published. Credit packs from a $100 minimum
Osintpro: $149, $449 or $1,190 a month per plan

Priced by

Shodan: Data volume and monitored IPs, not seats
Censys: Consumed credits
Osintpro: Seats and cases a month

Internet-wide device search

Shodan: Best in category
Censys: Very strong
Osintpro: Not what we do. If this is your need, stay.

Shodan figures are from Shodan's own documentation, and Censys confirms on its pricing page that tier prices are not published and that credit packages start at a $100 minimum. Both were checked in September 2026 and both will move. Verify before you sign anything.

The artifact, so you can hold it against a result list.

Declare a scope, run a domain, and read what comes back. Each finding carries the record it was derived from, the endpoint it came from and the UTC moment it was retrieved. It takes a domain and never a person.

It runs in your browser. Queries go to public DNS and RDAP endpoints, not through us.
Nothing reaches the subject. The domain you enter is never contacted, probed or scanned.
A domain, never a person. There is no input on this panel that accepts an individual.
Findings carry their evidence. Raw record, source endpoint and the UTC moment of retrieval.

Domain footprint sweep

passive collection only

1. Declare the scope stamped on the report

I am authorized to assess this domain, and I am collecting only from public sources.

2. Subject domain

Samples:

Every finding will carry four things

1 Severity. What the record means for the decision in front of you.
2 The raw record. Exactly as the source returned it, unedited.
3 The source endpoint. The request that produced it, so it can be re-run.
4 The UTC retrieval time. Records change. Without this it is an assertion.

Reads dns.google and rdap.org from your browser. Nothing is sent to the domain you enter.

Tick the authorization box, then run the sweep. Enter the domain you are authorized to assess, then run the sweep. Run the sweep. The report lands here.

Shodan pricing, and the part that surprises procurement.

Shodan publishes its numbers, which is more than most of the category does. The friction is rarely the amount.

A one-time membership, then three subscriptions

Shodan's documented tiers are a $49 one-time Membership for individuals, then Freelancer at $69 a month, Small Business at $359 a month and Corporate at $1,099 a month, with an Enterprise agreement for bulk data access arranged through sales. Students with an academic address are upgraded to Membership automatically.

The unit is data, not people

Shodan states plainly that the tiers are separated by how much data you can download and how many IPs you can monitor, not by company size or seat count, and that an organization of any size can buy the Freelancer plan. That is refreshingly honest and it is also where the model stops fitting some buyers: an eight-person risk team that each needs to run two lookups a week is paying for a data allowance nobody consumes.

Where the money actually goes

The cost that shows up in a budget review is usually not the license. A vendor screening that takes three and a half hours of write-up after the lookups are done, at a loaded hourly rate, costs more per case than any of these plans cost per month. That arithmetic is worked through on the pricing page, with the assumptions stated so you can change them.

Censys vs Shodan, in the terms that decide it.

The two indexes overlap and they are not identical. Shodan has the longer history and the broader tolerance for odd protocols, which is why it turns up industrial and embedded services other scanners miss. Censys runs a stricter, more normalized data model with strong certificate and host attribution, which is why teams doing structured attribution work tend to prefer it.

The commercial difference is sharper than the technical one. Shodan publishes prices you can read in ten seconds and buy with a card. Censys does not publish tier prices at all: its pricing page routes Core, Adversary Investigation and Security Operations through sales, with a consumption model built on credit packages that start at a $100 minimum. If your procurement process needs a number before it will approve a trial, that difference decides the shortlist more often than index coverage does.

Both share the same boundary for our kind of buyer. They tell you what is listening. Neither tells you whether the registrant is who they claim to be, whether the mail domain can be spoofed, or whether the counterparty is a registered company, and neither writes the paragraph a reviewer reads. Those questions come from registration records, DNS and mail posture and corporate registries, which is the material we collect.

When a Shodan alternative is the right call, and when it is not.

Your deliverable is a document

If the week ends with a PDF somebody signs, a search engine leaves you with the whole write-up still to do. That is the gap this tool exists to close.

Non-analysts have to run the work

Vendor screening and pre-signature checks usually land on risk or procurement. Query filter syntax is a real barrier for someone who runs four cases a quarter.

You cannot touch the subject

Some engagements forbid contacting the target before authorization is signed. Scanners connect to the host by design. Passive record collection does not.

A finding will be challenged

A banner with a scan date is weaker under review than a raw record with a named endpoint and a UTC retrieval time. The report structure is built for that argument.

Procurement needs a number

Shodan publishes prices, so this is not the reason to leave Shodan. It is a common reason teams leave the sales-gated end of the category.

Do NOT switch for device search

If you need to find exposed services across the internet by their banner, keep Shodan. We would not win that comparison and we are not going to pretend we would.

Questions buyers ask before they switch.

Shodan has a free tier on any registered account with limited query credits and restricted filters. Paid access is a $49 one-time Membership for individuals, or a subscription at $69, $359 or $1,099 a month, with Enterprise arranged through sales. The tiers are separated by data volume and monitored IPs rather than seats.

For finding exposed services across the internet by banner, yes, and cheaply. It stops being worth it when your real output is a report about one named subject, because the license then buys you lookups you still have to interpret, source and write up by hand. Judge it against the write-up hours, not against other search engines.

Buy Shodan if you want published prices, a card checkout and the widest tolerance for unusual and embedded services. Buy Censys if you want a stricter normalized data model and strong certificate attribution, and your procurement can absorb a sales call, because Censys does not publish tier prices and sells consumption credits from a $100 minimum.

No. Shodan scans a large but selected set of ports and protocols on a rolling schedule, so a result is a record of what a host answered when it was last reached, not a live or exhaustive port list. That is fine for discovery and it is why a Shodan record should be treated as a dated observation rather than current state.

Yes. Passive tools derive findings from records the subject already published: RDAP and WHOIS registration, DNS and mail posture, certificate transparency logs, corporate registries. Nothing connects to the host, so collection is legal to run before authorization lands and leaves no trace on the subject's infrastructure.

Not for internet-wide device search, and any vendor claiming otherwise is selling. It replaces Shodan when the search engine was only ever a step towards a sourced report about a specific organization. Plenty of teams keep both and use each for the job it was shaped for.

Most teams should run both, and that is not a hedge.

Scanners and record tools answer different halves of the same review.

A workable arrangement: Shodan or Censys for exposure discovery, where you need to know what is listening and where, and a case platform for anything with a signature attached, where the finding has to carry its evidence and the output has to read cleanly to somebody who was not in the room.

If you are choosing for the first time, the honest test is what your last five pieces of work ended in. Query results, or a document. The full category comparison covers the rest of the field, the Censys pricing and plans breakdown takes Censys on its own, the Maltego comparison takes the graph side, and attack surface management from public records is the closest thing here to what a scanner buyer is usually shopping for.

More comparisons and alternatives

New to the category? Start with open source intelligence, then see how a scoped case runs or read the analyst notes on the blog.

Run one scoped sweep and see what a sourced finding looks like.

The demo is free, it takes a domain and never a person, and it produces the same evidence chain the paid report does.

See how a case runs

Passive collection only, from public sources.
A domain, never a person. There is no input for one.
Your case data stays yours. No card required.