Censys
Censys maps internet-facing hosts, certificates and services for attack-surface and threat investigations, with a free tier plus credit and enterprise plans.
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- Category
- OSINT & Reconnaissance
- Pricing
- Freemium
- Platforms
- Web
- Reviewed
- Last reviewed 1 October 2026
- Links
- Website
What it is
Censys is a commercial internet intelligence platform built on a continuously updated map of global internet infrastructure. Security teams search hosts, certificates, services and related web properties to understand exposure, investigate adversaries and enrich SOC workflows. A free account provides limited visibility; paid credits, Starter and enterprise Core or Search plans unlock deeper history, API scale and advanced features.
What it helps with
- Discovering internet-facing assets and services that belong to your organisation or to threat actors.
- Investigating certificates, banners and protocol details for exposure and misconfiguration clues.
- Enriching alerts and detections with host and infrastructure context via API lookups.
- Tracking collections of queries over time for attack-surface monitoring.
- Supporting threat hunting and adversary infrastructure research with historical data on higher tiers.
- Acting as a Shodan-class peer for internet-wide reconnaissance with Censys's own data model.
Who it's for
SOC analysts, detection engineers, ASM and threat intelligence teams that need authoritative internet visibility, from free exploratory searches through enterprise security operations programmes.
Worth knowing
Censys Free is limited (for example basic protocols and capped result pages). Purchasing credits upgrades to Starter; Search and Core enterprise plans are sales-quoted, with credit packages starting from about $100 on published pages. Official site censys.com; brand assets via the company brand page. Use only for authorised defensive reconnaissance and investigations.