Censys is an internet-wide scanning platform born from the ZMap research project at the University of Michigan. It indexes every public-facing host on the internet using its own scanning infrastructure, providing a searchable database of hosts, certificates, and services. MAGO is a domain intelligence platform that chains multiple OSINT sources into automated reconnaissance workflows. Both serve security teams, but their approaches differ fundamentally.
What Censys Does
Censys performs continuous internet-wide scanning across all 65,535 ports on every public IPv4 address and a growing portion of IPv6 space. Its data model centers on hosts and services, providing structured data about TLS certificates, HTTP responses, and protocol banners. The Censys Attack Surface Management product builds on this scanning data to help organizations discover and monitor their external assets.
Censys Search is particularly strong for certificate analysis. It indexes over 10 billion certificates from CT logs and active scans, making it the most comprehensive certificate search engine available. The platform also provides risk scoring and automated asset attribution for enterprise customers.
What MAGO Does
MAGO takes a domain-first approach to intelligence gathering. Rather than scanning the entire internet and letting you search it, MAGO starts from a domain name and automatically discovers everything connected to it: subdomains, DNS records, WHOIS data, certificate transparency entries, HTTP headers, technology stacks, and threat intelligence indicators. Each piece of data feeds into the next through automated spell chaining.
Where Censys provides a snapshot of what is publicly visible on an IP, MAGO produces contextualized intelligence about a domain's entire attack surface with severity ratings and remediation guidance included in every report.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | MAGO | Censys |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Domain intelligence | Internet-wide host scanning |
| Scanning approach | Passive OSINT aggregation | Active internet-wide scanning |
| Certificate search | CT log queries | 10B+ certificates indexed |
| Subdomain discovery | Yes (multi-source) | Via certificate matching |
| DNS analysis | Full record enumeration | Reverse DNS only |
| Header auditing | Yes (OWASP grading) | Raw HTTP response |
| Technology detection | Yes (fingerprinting) | Banner-based |
| Threat intelligence | OTX, ThreatFox, URLhaus | Risk scoring only |
| Automated chaining | Yes (spell pipelines) | No |
| Report generation | Yes (HTML/PDF) | Dashboard + export |
| IPv6 support | Via DNS/OSINT | Active scanning |
| API rate limits | Generous free tier | 250 queries/mo free |
Pricing
| Plan | MAGO | Censys |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 5 scans/month | 250 API queries/month |
| Solo | $49/mo | $350/mo (Censys Search Pro) |
| Team/Business | $149/mo | Custom (ASM product) |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom (starts ~$30K/yr) |
Pros and Cons
Censys Pros
- Largest certificate database available (10B+ certs)
- Active scanning covers every public IP, not just indexed domains
- Strong academic foundation with peer-reviewed methodology
- Structured data model makes programmatic analysis straightforward
- Attack Surface Management product provides continuous monitoring
Censys Cons
- Expensive -- ASM product starts at enterprise pricing only
- Free tier is very limited (250 queries/month)
- Host-centric model requires knowing IPs or using ASM product
- No automated OSINT chaining or domain-based workflows in Search
- Certificate-heavy focus means less depth in DNS and header analysis
MAGO Pros
- Domain-first approach discovers unknown assets automatically
- Automated spell chaining eliminates manual correlation work
- Actionable reports with severity ratings and remediation steps
- Accessible pricing for individuals and small teams
- Integrates threat intelligence, DNS, certs, and headers in one workflow
MAGO Cons
- No active internet-wide scanning infrastructure
- Smaller certificate database than Censys
- Less useful for pure IP-based host enumeration
- Newer platform with smaller ecosystem
The Verdict
Censys is the gold standard for internet-wide host and certificate scanning, backed by serious infrastructure and academic research. If you need to search the entire internet by service, certificate, or host attributes, Censys is the tool. MAGO is the better choice when your starting point is a domain and you need a complete intelligence picture quickly, without the enterprise price tag. For organizations with the budget, running both provides the deepest coverage: Censys for internet-scale visibility, MAGO for domain-level intelligence automation.
See Your Domain Through MAGO
Run a free domain intelligence scan and see how MAGO compares to Censys.