CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Censys vs Hadrian

Censys supports investigations with real-time Internet infrastructure visibility and historical context. Hadrian is an agentic AI offensive security platform that continuously discovers an organization's external attack surface and tests it for exploitable exposures. CISO Tribune files both under External attack surface management. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Censys
  • Hadrian
Censys vs Hadrian: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
CensysCensys supports investigations with real-time Internet infrastructure visibility and historical context.censys.comHadrianHadrian is an agentic AI offensive security platform that continuously discovers an organization's external attack surface and tests it for exploitable exposures.hadrian.io
What it sells
  • Censys Platform[3][8][17][18][19][20][21]Delivers visibility and intelligence for triage, threat investigation, adversary hunting and Internet exposure management.
  • Censys ASM[8]Reveals Internet-facing assets, services and exposures across all 65,535 ports.
  • Adversary Investigation[3][4][5][9][17][19]An add-on module to the Censys Platform to detect, analyze and track threat infrastructure.
  • cencli[20]A command line tool for running search queries, looking up assets and performing aggregations.
  • Atlas[1][4][5][6][7]Atlas continuously maps a company's external attack surface and validates exposures. Atlas discovers every domain, DNS record, IP, certificate, cloud service and app a company exposes.
  • Nova[1][4][5][9]Nova is an agentic penetration test powered by AI. Once pointed at an application, Nova's AI hacker agents work through it step by step until they can show real impact.
Categories
Headquarters
Ann Arbor, United States[2][21]Not stated on its pages
Founded
2017[1]2021[2]
Ownership and funding
Not stated on its pagesPrivately held[5][6][11][16]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • September 22, 2026Censys announced an expanded global Channel Partner Program and investments to accelerate its channel-first growth strategy.[14]
  • July 22, 2026Censys announced record first half 2026 growth, reflecting growing enterprise adoption of Internet intelligence.[13]
  • July 8, 2026Censys expanded its Internet Map to include real-time DNS visibility.[25]
  • June 18, 2026Censys announced its expansion into security operations, enabling organizations to use its internet intelligence across security workflows.[26]
  • June 18, 2026Censys announced its expansion into security operations, enabling organizations to use its Internet intelligence across security workflows.[12]
  • May 20, 2026Hadrian released OpenHack, a tool for AI-powered source code review.[14]
  • April 2, 2026Hadrian announced that its MCP server is live.[15]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: listed, seen November 10, 2026[6]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: listed, seen November 10, 2026[16]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
From its own pages, Censys sells to private and public sector security teams. Censys describes a plan for threat hunting and CTI teams looking to hunt, track and engineer detections for adversary campaigns and infrastructure. Censys describes a plan for enterprises that want to use Censys data across alert triage, IR, threat intel and detection engineering. Censys offers purpose-built internet intelligence with specialized datasets for government specific investigations and exposure management requirements. Censys offers Single Sign-On through a SAML-based integration to Enterprise and Government users.From its own pages, Hadrian sells an agentic AI offensive security platform to modern security teams. Hadrian describes mapping the external attack surface of every company in a group, including new acquisitions and legacy infrastructure. Hadrian states that role-based access lets each subsidiary or business unit see and act on its own assets while the group security team keeps the full view. Hadrian says many customers use the platform as their continuous baseline and bring in manual testers for targeted deep dives. Hadrian is delivered from the cloud.
Last verified
September 27, 2026October 30, 2026

Where they overlap

  • External attack surface management is the primary category of both Censys and Hadrian.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Censys is also filed under Threat intelligence. Hadrian is also filed under Breach simulation and automated pen-testing and Exposure prioritisation and CTEM.
  • Censys lists Censys Platform, Censys ASM, Adversary Investigation and cencli. Hadrian lists Atlas and Nova.
  • Censys is headquartered in Ann Arbor, United States.
  • Censys was founded in 2017. Hadrian was founded in 2021.
  • Hadrian is privately held.

How they differ

CISO Tribune files both Censys and Hadrian under External attack surface management as their primary category, but the two sell different things around that core. Censys ASM uses first-party scanning to find Internet-exposed assets across all 65,535 ports. Hadrian sells Atlas, which continuously maps a company's external attack surface and validates exposures, and Nova, an agentic penetration test powered by AI. CISO Tribune also files Hadrian under Breach simulation and automated pen-testing and Exposure prioritisation and CTEM, while it files Censys under Threat intelligence.

Censys is headquartered in Ann Arbor, United States, and was founded in 2017. Hadrian was founded in 2021 and is privately held. Hadrian says its platform is delivered from the cloud, and that many customers use it as a continuous baseline alongside manual testers.

On June 18, 2026, Censys announced an expansion into security operations, and on September 22, 2026 it announced an expanded global Channel Partner Program. Censys also expanded its Internet Map to include real-time DNS visibility on July 8, 2026. Hadrian released OpenHack, a tool for AI-powered source code review, on May 20, 2026. Hadrian announced on April 2, 2026 that its MCP server is live.

What it sells: Censys

What Censys Platform does[3][8][17][18][19][20][21]
Censys Platform has API endpoints for integrating Platform functionality with a customer tech stack. Censys Platform uses a language called Censys Query Language. Censys Platform includes a web property dataset covering name-based assets on the internet, including websites, APIs and web-based applications.
What Censys ASM does[8]
Censys ASM uses first-party scanning to find Internet-exposed assets, including services on nonstandard ports, self-signed certificates, hosts in residential networks and dangling DNS records. Censys ASM sends alerts on changes such as new hosts and services, open ports and reissued certificates. Censys ranks risks by severity, category and affected asset.
What Adversary Investigation does[3][4][5][9][17][19]
The Adversary Investigation module is an add-on to the Censys Platform for organizations to detect, analyze and track threat infrastructure. Actions that use CensEye to discover related infrastructure for a host, web property or certificate are only available to users with access to the Adversary Investigation module.

What it sells: Hadrian

What Atlas does[1][4][5][6][7]
Atlas discovers assets, technologies and service points, then uses agentic AI to confirm which exposures are actually exploitable. Atlas runs passive scans every hour, and event-driven testing starts automatically when a new asset or change is detected. Atlas pricing is based on the total asset count. Atlas offers two add-ons at additional cost: mergers and acquisitions assessment and infostealers credential leak detection.

Questions about Censys and Hadrian

What do Censys and Hadrian sell?
Censys sells Censys Platform, Censys ASM, Adversary Investigation and cencli. Hadrian sells Atlas and Nova.
Are Censys and Hadrian in the same category?
Yes. External attack surface management is the primary category of both on CISO Tribune.
Where are Censys and Hadrian headquartered?
Censys is headquartered in Ann Arbor, United States.
When were Censys and Hadrian founded?
Censys was founded in 2017. Hadrian was founded in 2021.
Who owns Censys and Hadrian?
Hadrian is privately held.
Who are Censys and Hadrian sold to?
From its own pages, Censys sells to private and public sector security teams. From its own pages, Hadrian sells an agentic AI offensive security platform to modern security teams.
What have Censys and Hadrian announced recently?
September 22, 2026: Censys announced an expanded global Channel Partner Program and investments to accelerate its channel-first growth strategy. May 20, 2026: Hadrian released OpenHack, a tool for AI-powered source code review.

About Censys

Censys supports investigations with real-time Internet infrastructure visibility and historical context. Censys supports tracking attacker infrastructure and uncovering related assets. Censys supports discovering unknown assets, identifying critical risks and protecting an external attack surface. Censys supports identifying third-party risk by continuously monitoring supplier Internet exposure. Censys names Global 2000 enterprises and governments as the organizations that choose it for Security Operations and Exposure Management. Censys ARC publishes original research covering emerging threats, attacker infrastructure, vulnerabilities and Internet-wide exposure.[8][10]

Censys ASM reveals Internet-facing assets, services and exposures across all 65,535 ports, using the Censys Internet Map. Censys maps the global internet across all 65K ports to show what attackers, customers and regulators can see. Censys ASM uses first-party scanning to find Internet-exposed assets, including services on nonstandard ports, self-signed certificates, hosts in residential networks and dangling DNS records. Censys maps the JavaScript libraries, web technologies and plugins running across an environment, then detects and flags the vulnerabilities and risks present.[8][16]

Censys ASM monitors a surface continuously and sends alerts on changes such as new hosts and services, open ports and reissued certificates. Censys ranks risks by severity, category and affected asset. Censys ASM integrates with ticketing, SIEM, vulnerability management and other tooling to auto-create, route and track remediation tasks. The Censys Assistant takes plain-language questions about an inventory, such as which CVEs affect it or which cloud providers are in use, and generates executive-ready reports on demand.[8]

Censys Platform has API endpoints for integrating Platform functionality with a customer tech stack. Censys Platform uses a language called Censys Query Language. Censys Platform includes a web property dataset covering name-based assets on the internet, including websites, APIs and web-based applications. Collections let users track and monitor the results of a Censys query over time. The Adversary Investigation module is an add-on to the Censys Platform for organizations to detect, analyze and track threat infrastructure. Censys offers CensEye for automated pivoting jobs that find assets related to an IP, web property or certificate. Censys offers the cencli command line tool for running search queries, looking up assets and performing aggregations.[4][9][17][18][19][20]

Censys Platform data can enrich IPs, web properties and certificates in Google SecOps. Censys has an Attack Surface Management (ASM) integration with Google SecOps. Censys integrates natively with many SIEM, SOAR, TIP and other security tools. API access is included across all Censys tiers.[19]

Censys Credits power searches, lookups and other actions within the Censys Platform. Censys sets Starter plans to begin at 500 credits, and Enterprise customers use credits only for API usage. Censys Platform access is organised in Censys Free, Censys Starter, Censys Search and Censys Core tiers. Censys describes a plan for threat hunting and CTI teams looking to hunt, track and engineer detections for adversary campaigns and infrastructure. Censys describes a further plan for enterprises that want to use Censys data across alert triage, IR, threat intel and detection engineering. Censys offers Single Sign-On through a SAML-based integration to Enterprise and Government users. Censys offers purpose-built internet intelligence with specialized datasets for government specific investigations and exposure management requirements.[20]

Censys created fast Internet scanning at the University of Michigan and released the ZMap open source scanner. Censys introduced Censys Search and data downloads, initially scanning 16 popular Internet protocols. Censys evolved from a research project into a free-standing company. Censys architected a new scan engine with proprietary scanning technology. Censys goes to market in Nordics, France, Australia, Singapore, Japan and more. Censys says it empowers private and public sector security teams.[4][5][8][9][10][11][16]

Censys on the record

Sources

Censys full record

  1. [1]Censys introduces the ground truth for internet intelligence the censys internet map 301938734Censys via PR Newswire · prnewswire.com · published September 26, 2023 · Tier A
  2. [2]CareersCensys · censys.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Censys | The Authority for Internet Intelligence and InsightsCensys · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Platform API Transition GuideCensys · published October 5, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]SAML AuthenticationCensys · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Censys Attack Surface Management Reviews & Product Details - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier C
  7. [7]Censys Search - CensysCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Censys | Attack Surface Management | Internet VisibilityCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Adversary Investigation - CensysCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Critical Infrastructure Monitoring - CensysCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Trusted by Global Leaders for VisibilityCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Censys Expands Into Security Operations with Internet Intelligence-Powered WorkflowsCensys · published June 18, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Censys Delivers Record First Half 2026 Growth as AI Driven Demand for Internet Intelligence AcceleratesCensys · published July 22, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Censys Transforms Global Channel Program to Accelerate Partner-Led GrowthCensys · published September 22, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Censys Reviews, Ratings & Features 2026 | Gartner Peer InsightsGartner Peer Insights · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier C
  16. [16]Censys | External Exposure Management & Attack Surface MappingCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Platform API Transition GuideCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  18. [18]Platform FAQsCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  19. [19]Google SecOps SOAR IntegrationCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  20. [20]Platform CLI ToolCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  21. [21]Pricing | CensysCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  22. [22]Censys Built by Cybersecurity Experts for Real-Time Threat IntelligenceCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  23. [23]Censys Unveils Censys ARC, Formalizing Its Global Internet Threat Research TeamCensys · published March 10, 2026 · Tier A
  24. [24]Censys Powers SOC Modernization with Real-Time Internet Context and Risk ScoringCensys · published April 9, 2026 · Tier A
  25. [25]Censys Expands Its Internet Map to Include DNS IntelligenceCensys · published July 8, 2026 · Tier A
  26. [26]Censys Expands Into Security Operations with Internet Intelligence-Powered WorkflowsCensys · published June 18, 2026 · Tier A

Hadrian full record

  1. [1]hadrian.ioHadrian · hadrian.io · undated page, accessed October 30, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]CompanyHadrian · hadrian.io · undated page, accessed October 30, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Agentic Penetration Testing | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Offensive Security Platform: Atlas + Nova | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Know your attack surface, pentest it continuously | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Atlas: Continuous Attack Surface Management | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Continuous Attack Surface Management | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Nova: On-Demand Agentic Pentesting | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Automated Red Teaming for Your Attack Surface | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Acquisition and Subsidiary Attack Surface | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Cloud Exposure Visibility & Control | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) | HadrianHadrian · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Hadrian releases OpenHack for AI vulnerability discoveryHadrian · published May 20, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Hadrian's MCP server is liveHadrian · published April 2, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Hadrian Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & FeaturesG2 · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier C

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