# AbuseIPDB vs Censys (slim)

> Censys scores 64.1 (B) to AbuseIPDB's 55.7 (C) for secintel reputation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/abuseipdb-vs-censys.md (~4,950 tokens) · this version ~3,330 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/abuseipdb-vs-censys.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/abuseipdb-vs-censys
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-04
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Censys scores 64.1 (B) on agent readiness against AbuseIPDB's 55.7 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. AbuseIPDB leads on reliability. Both do secintel reputation.

- AbuseIPDB: C 55.7, rank #764 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/abuseipdb.min.md
- Censys: B 64.1, rank #439 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/censys.min.md
- AbuseIPDB, good for An agent that needs a quick reputation verdict on an IP or subnet, or wants to report abuse from its own logs, with a free daily quota large enough for one incident. Ahead on Reliability, 75 against 55. Also Runs on your own machine; Free to start without a card.
- Censys, good for An agent that needs to know what a host, web property or certificate exposes right now and how that changed, with DNS resolution and enrichment on paid plans. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 82 against 59; Agent ergonomics, 79 against 74; Security & auth, 55 against 37; Payments & pricing, 35 against 30; Maintenance & community, 84 against 38. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.

| Category | AbuseIPDB | Censys |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 75 | 55 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 59 | 82 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 74 | 79 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 37 | 55 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 35 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 38 | 84 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 63 | 64 |

| Fact (where they differ) | AbuseIPDB | Censys |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | AbuseIPDB LLC | Censys, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.platform.censys.io/v3/` |
| Transports | stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under Censys's Terms of Service. The Platform SDKs are MIT and the cencli command line tool is Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 2 | 12 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `io.github.abuseipdb/abuseipdb-mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-08-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 6 stars | 11 stars |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, Censys +46: AbuseIPDB 38 (Read as a closed service with an official MCP server. The newest dated change to the surface is the MCP server's v0.1.1 on 2 August 2026, 93 days before the check; the API docs and blog carry no later date (10 of 30). One release in the last 90 days, v0.1.1 fell just outside it (0 of 20). Support is a contact form with no guaranteed response on the free plan, there is no public changelog for the API, and the MCP repository shows a pull request merged on 2 August but GitHub's issue pages could not be read (5 of 15). The MCP server sits in the official registry under io.github.abuseipdb (15). The MCP package has CI on Python 3.11 to 3.14 with ruff, pytest and a packaging check, and a locked dependency set (8 of 10). 10 + 0 + 5 + 15 + 8 = 38.); Censys 84 (Newest changelog entry 2 November 2026 and censys-platform 0.16.7 on 29 October (30). Ten dated changelog entries between 8 September and 2 November and eight PyPI releases since 4 August (20). A closed service with a weekly changelog, a Gainsight community forum with Platform Q and A sections, an in-app feedback portal and support@censys.com. GitHub issue replies weren't read (12 of 15). Official SDKs in three languages regenerated from the spec, the Go and TypeScript repositories pushed on 3 November and PyPI on 29 October (15). The SDKs are 0.x and generated, with a stated grace period for dropping Python versions. CI wasn't read (7 of 10). 30 + 20 + 12 + 15 + 7 = 84.)
- Schema & documentation, Censys +23: AbuseIPDB 59 (The surface graded is the REST API v2, with the official MCP server noted. No OpenAPI document was found. The MCP server's two tools carry JSON Schema inputs with range constraints from pydantic Field (8 of 25). llms.txt on abuseipdb.com describes the API, endpoints, categories and reporting rules (10). Each endpoint has a purpose statement and a parameter table, the FAQ explains scoring and decay, and the docs say to act on abuseConfidenceScore rather than isWhitelisted, with little on when not to call (14 of 20). Parameters give defaults and ranges (maxAgeInDays 1 to 365, perPage 1 to 100), usageType has a listed set of values and categories are numbered, but types are not stated and the categories default is ambiguous (10 of 15). Examples in cURL, Python, PHP, C# and VBScript for every endpoint, and errors follow the JSON API shape with 422, 429 and 402 examples (12 of 15). v2 is in the path, there is no API changelog, the blog's last post is from December 2018, and the reports endpoint may change without notice (5 of 15). 8 + 10 + 14 + 10 + 12 + 5 = 59.); Censys 82 (OpenAPI 3.1.0, titled Censys Platform API, version 1.0.161, served inside each reference page and the source of the three Speakeasy SDKs. No standalone download was found, and the censys-sdk-openapi repository holds only a README (22 of 25). llms.txt at docs.censys.com with a Markdown twin of every page (10). Endpoint descriptions state purpose and a use case ('Run a search query across Censys data', a SOC hunting for a C2 banner, JARM or favicon hash), MCP tools say what each does, with little on when not to use a call (14 of 20). Typed path, query and body fields, `page_size` default and maximum 100, required `query`, an Accept header for schema versions. The query itself is a CenQL string with its own language docs (11 of 15). Code samples in shell, Python, Go, JavaScript and Java, a status code table and problem+json ErrorModel bodies, but the search operation's usage example block is empty and 429 isn't among its responses (10 of 15). Versioned paths and Accept header, a dated changelog every week from 8 September to 2 November 2026 (15). 22 + 10 + 14 + 11 + 10 + 15 = 82.)
- Reliability, AbuseIPDB +20: AbuseIPDB 75 (Read with the hosted lines. A status page on UptimeRobot is linked from every page's footer (20). Its monitors and 90-day history load by script and answered with an error on 3 November 2026, so no incident record could be read (5). Daily limits are published per endpoint and per plan, 1,000 checks a day on the free plan up to 50,000 on Premium (15). A 429 carries Retry-After, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining and X-RateLimit-Reset, and a repeated report of the same address with the same comment within 24 hours updates the earlier report instead of adding one (15). The terms carry a service level agreement with a 99 per cent monthly availability target and a refund as the sole remedy (10). API v2 is generally available, with only the reports endpoint in open beta (10). 20 + 5 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 10 = 75.); Censys 55 (Graded as a hosted service on the Platform API. Atlassian Statuspage at status.censys.com with Platform API, Authentication, Credit Management and three MCP server components (20). Its feed lists 12 entries from 24 August to 2 November 2026. Two were maintenance on ASM. The rest include intermittent 500s on the Platform from 13:52 on 24 August to 09:52 the next day, periodic query failures from 20 to 22 September, historical data calls timing out for about an hour on 18 September, an internal networking outage of the Platform and ASM from 00:35 to 13:46 EDT on 30 September, and failing searches from 14:26 EST on 2 November still in monitoring at 19:08. One full outage of about 13 hours and two multi-hour periods of failing core queries, read as more than one major (5). Limits are published with numbers, concurrency 1 or 25 per organisation and 25 requests a second per IP with a burst of 125 (15). Overruns return 429 or 503, but no Retry-After, backoff guidance or idempotency keys were found, and the SDKs say only that they follow the API's default retry strategy (5 of 15). No SLA found. The terms disclaim any warranty that the service will meet requirements, and the pricing page names none (0). The v3 API is generally available (10). 20 + 5 + 15 + 5 + 0 + 10 = 55.)
- Security & auth, Censys +18: AbuseIPDB 37 (One API key per account with no scopes found, recommended in a Key header but also accepted as a query or form parameter per the docs (20 less 10 for the query string, so 10). The same key submits reports, bulk reports and clear-address deletes, with no read-only key; the official MCP server is read-only and its write-tool switch is inert (10 of 20). check and reports return reporter comments, which are public user-submitted text, and no guidance on treating them as untrusted was found (4 of 15). Paid plans include API log downloads for the last 24 to 120 hours and the pricing page lists the window per plan (10 of 15). security.txt returns 404, no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found, and the MCP repository's SECURITY.md points to the vendor's support channels (3 of 20). 10 + 10 + 4 + 10 + 3 = 37.); Censys 55 (Personal access tokens as a Bearer header, several per user, named, shown once and deletable, with no scopes or expiry stated. Service accounts on Search and Core plans use OAuth 2 client credentials with module roles and a rotatable secret, and the MCP server takes OAuth with a consent page. Only the organisation id, not a secret, may travel in the query string (26 of 30). Module roles (Analyst, Manager), an API Access role and the advice to grant service accounts only the roles they need, but no read-only token and no confirmation step for deleting a collection (12 of 20). Results carry banners, HTML titles and certificate subjects from scanned hosts, and no guidance on treating them as untrusted was found in the API, MCP or skills docs (3 of 15). A platform audit log for admins that records service account activity, credit usage per member through the API and `X-Request-ID` on every response, with no documented per-call log for token holders (10 of 15). security@censys.com on the contact page. security.txt 404, no bug bounty, and the compliance page says Censys helps customers with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and FedRAMP without claiming any for itself (4 of 20). 26 + 12 + 3 + 10 + 4 = 55.)
- Agent ergonomics, Censys +5: AbuseIPDB 74 (check returns a compact record unless verbose is set, which adds the reports array, maxAgeInDays bounds the window, and blacklist takes a limit and a plaintext form (18 of 25). reports is paginated with page and perPage up to 100 and next and previous links, and blacklist filters by confidence, country and IP version, though check has no field selection (16 of 20). Errors carry a status and a detail an agent can act on, 429 names the daily limit and the headers say when it resets, and a 402 marks a plan limit on check-block (16 of 20). Every lookup is a GET, duplicate reports within 24 hours collapse, and both MCP tools are annotated readOnlyHint and idempotentHint (16 of 20). One required parameter per endpoint with sensible defaults. No official SDK beyond a Laravel package in the vendor's GitHub organisation and the Python MCP server (8 of 15). 18 + 16 + 16 + 16 + 8 = 74.); Censys 79 (`fields` limits a search response to named fields and `page_size` caps it at 100, with raw and full variants of lookups chosen by endpoint (22 of 25). `page_token` with `next_page_token` and `previous_page_token`, `total_hits`, aggregate endpoints and a bulk lookup (20). A status code table that separates 401, 403, 422, 429 and 503, problem+json bodies and `X-Request-ID` on responses, but no catalogue of error codes beyond status (14 of 20). Lookups and search are safe to retry, but collections, tags, comments and member endpoints write with no idempotency key, and no tool annotations are documented for the MCP server (8 of 20). One required field on search, SDKs in Python, Go and TypeScript, a CLI and Claude Code skills, though every paid-tier call also needs the organisation id (15). 22 + 20 + 14 + 8 + 15 = 79.)
- Payments & pricing, Censys +5: AbuseIPDB 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public, $25 and $99 a month, sold by daily quota rather than per call (10). The Individual plan allows 1,000 checks a day with no card, and paid plans carry a 30-day trial (20). The key comes from the account page after a browser signup, and the terms forbid multiple accounts to raise quota, so no autonomous route (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.); Censys 35 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Starter at $79 a month for 500 credits and Starter Pro at $599 for 4,000 are public in the docs with one credit an action, which gives a per-call price, while Core and higher plans and credit top-ups are priced by sales (15 of 20). A free account gets 100 credits a month and five free actions a day with no card named (20). Signup, token creation and Starter purchase all happen in a browser, and no key API was found (0). 0 + 15 + 20 + 0 = 35.)