Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Shodan VS MASSCAN

Compare Shodan VS MASSCAN and see what are their differences

Shodan logo Shodan

Shodan is the world's first search engine for Internet-connected devices.

MASSCAN logo MASSCAN

This is the fastest Internet port scanner.
  • Shodan Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-16
  • MASSCAN Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-04

Shodan features and specs

  • Comprehensive Data Collection
    Shodan extensively scans the internet, collecting data from a wide range of devices and services, which provides users with a thorough overview of their network exposure.
  • Security Awareness
    It helps organizations identify and address security vulnerabilities by revealing exposed devices and services that might otherwise go unnoticed.
  • Automation Capabilities
    The platform offers an API that allows users to automate searches and integrate Shodan data into their own tools and workflows.
  • Detailed Search Filters
    Shodan provides advanced search filters that allow users to narrow down results based on specific criteria such as geographic location, device type, or operating system.
  • Real-Time Monitoring
    Users can set up real-time alerts to monitor for new exposures, ensuring timely response to potential threats.

Possible disadvantages of Shodan

  • Ethical and Legal Concerns
    Shodan can be used by malicious actors to identify and exploit vulnerabilities, raising ethical and legal questions about its use and data collection practices.
  • Complex UI
    The user interface can be overwhelming for beginners due to its complexity and the vast amount of data available, making it difficult to navigate without prior experience.
  • Subscription Costs
    While Shodan offers a free tier, accessing advanced features and extensive search capabilities requires a subscription, which might be costly for some users.
  • Potential for False Positives
    The data collected by Shodan might include false positives, where benign devices are flagged as vulnerabilities, thus requiring users to manually verify each finding.
  • Privacy Concerns
    Since Shodan indexes devices connected to the internet, this can include personal and residential hardware, leading to privacy concerns for individuals whose devices are inadvertently exposed.

MASSCAN features and specs

  • Speed
    MASSCAN is known for its incredibly fast scanning capabilities, capable of scanning the entire Internet in under 6 minutes. It achieves this speed by sending packets asynchronously and using highly efficient network code.
  • Scalability
    The tool is highly scalable and can be used to scan large network ranges. It supports a range of port scanning methods, which makes it a versatile choice for different network environments.
  • Customizability
    MASSCAN allows users to customize their scanning tasks through extensive configuration options, including the ability to define specific ports, IP ranges, and rate limits, which can be tailored to meet specific project needs.
  • Cross-Platform
    MASSCAN is cross-platform and can be compiled and run on various operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and macOS, which makes it accessible to a wide range of users.

Possible disadvantages of MASSCAN

  • Lack of Detail
    While MASSCAN is excellent for fast scans and identifying open ports, it doesn't offer detailed service information or insights that more in-depth tools like Nmap provide, requiring supplementary tools for comprehensive scans.
  • Risk of Network Disruption
    Due to its high-speed scanning capabilities, MASSCAN can potentially overwhelm network devices or trigger firewalls and intrusion detection systems, posing a risk of network disruption if not managed carefully.
  • Requires Advanced Networking Knowledge
    The tool is designed for users with advanced networking knowledge, as improper configuration or use can result in inaccurate results or unintended network issues.
  • Legal and Ethical Concerns
    MASSCAN's ability to rapidly scan large network ranges can lead to legal and ethical concerns if used without proper authorization, making it essential for users to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Shodan videos

Searching the Internet with Shodan (Seen in Mr. Robot)

More videos:

  • Review - Bestech Shodan Unboxing & First Impressions
  • Review - Bestech Shodan FULL Review

MASSCAN videos

Tool Review - Masscan (Scan the whole internet)

More videos:

  • Review - SCANNING AT SCALE (masscan, nmap, axiom, recon.dev)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Shodan and MASSCAN)
Security
77 77%
23% 23
Monitoring Tools
71 71%
29% 29
Web Application Security
100 100%
0% 0
Network Scanning
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Shodan and MASSCAN

Shodan Reviews

We have no reviews of Shodan yet.
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MASSCAN Reviews

15 Best Nmap Alternatives Network Security Scanner
Masscan has a capacity of as much as 1.6 million packets per second on its Linux version. That is not all, Masscan can scale up to a hundred million packets per second on a computer that is rigged with eight 10 Gpbs installed cards that run on PF RING driver.
Alternatives to Nmap: from simple to advanced network scanning
By default, Masscan’s scan rate is 100,000 packets-per-second. The macOS or Windows version of this tool can be set to 300,000 packets-per-second. On Linux, Masscan can do 1.6 million packets-per-second. But it can scan up to 100 million packets-per-second on a computer rigged with eight 10-Gbps network cards installed in it and running the PF_RING driver.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Shodan should be more popular than MASSCAN. It has been mentiond 92 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Shodan mentions (92)

  • Introducing OSINT Template Engine: An open source OSINT Tool.
    Transform OSINT sources such as shodan, bgpview & urlscan into templates which you can use to query & store any and each of the API endpoints they provide. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Some outgoing ports (e.g, port 22) are blocked
    I'm a little surprised you're asking this but as you don't know - if you set the rulebase correctly, you won't get hammered by "public". A lot of people (of course not people here) don't do that which is why shodan.io is full of servers with SSH exposed to the world. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Does anyone want to vet this job opportunity?
    Eh, request a full demo before signing anything. If they make you buy before you can try, move on. Just be advised that data they collect from your site may be used in a database that puts a target on your back. Similar to how shodan.io works. I would probe them on how they handle customer data and if data is shared, partitioned, or isolated to ensure safety from a platform leak. They want to be a security... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Security issue or coincidence?
    My network is being hit by China and Russia many times per hour. Make sure your firewall is up-to-date and not have any services available on the Internet (WAN). Look at shodan.io which shows you _everything_ is searched on the Internet. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Onion sites crawling: Weird mass "HTTP/1.1 200 " HTTP status line returning?
    In the cases of nginx or apache, I suspect they may be acting as proxies to some backend that also chooses not to send a reason phrase back. Searching for "Reason Phrase" yields a number of bug reports/frameworks that may omit it, and shodan.io shows apache tomcat and a few other services/software that omit the code as well. Source: almost 2 years ago
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MASSCAN mentions (29)

  • Scanners Beware: Welcome to the Network from Hell
    It's a nice dream of "owning" the attackers but it doesn't have a real security value. [1] https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • What You Get After Running an SSH Honeypot for 30 Days
    A lot of these seem to use zmap (https://github.com/zmap/zmap) for the initial scan. Often with default parameters such as zmap setting ip id to 54321, having tcp initial window at 65535, having no SACK bit set and masscan with no SACK bit either, tcp initial window at 1024, tcp maximum segment size 1460 (which is strange to put below initial window size!), (older versions having fixed src port 61000 or 60000 from... - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Mass Scanning
    Can I get banned for mass scanning with https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan or does it slow down any other vms from other persons? Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Has anyone ever had their homelab or network hacked? What happened?
    Nope, this doesn't work any more. Shodan checks all ports (so any attackers using data from Shodan already know which ports you have open), and tools like masscan (https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan) let you portscan the entire IPv4 address space in less than 10 minutes. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Private server intruded
    The discord user at the time used the tool "Masscan" to scan every 25565 port on the internet, he claims he was able to get the entire internet scanned in just a few minutes with a 512MB buyvm slice. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Shodan and MASSCAN, you can also consider the following products

Intruder - Intruder is a security monitoring platform for internet-facing systems.

Nmap - Nmap Free Security Scanner, Port Scanner, & Network Exploration Tool. Download open source software for Linux, Windows, UNIX, FreeBSD, etc.

Nessus - Nessus Professional is a security platform designed for businesses who want to protect the security of themselves, their clients, and their customers.

Advanced IP Scanner - Advanced IP Scanner shows all network devices, gives you access to shared folders, and can even remotely switch computers off. Download it Free.

Acunetix - Audit your website security and web applications for SQL injection, Cross site scripting and other...

ZMap - ZMap is a fast single packet network scanner designed for Internet-wide network surveys.