aquatone vs crt.sh: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
aquatone is a free external attack surface management tool. crt.sh is a free external attack surface management tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best external attack surface management fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, integrations, company size fit, here is our conclusion:
Security teams running bug bounty programs or conducting external reconnaissance will extract the most value from Aquatone for initial subdomain enumeration and screenshot-based triage. Its free cost and 5,845 GitHub stars reflect real adoption among pentesters and security researchers who need fast visual reconnaissance before deeper scanning. Skip this if you're looking for vulnerability scanning or continuous asset monitoring; Aquatone is a starting point tool, not a detection platform.
Security teams doing threat intelligence or domain monitoring should use crt.sh as a free, fast way to spot certificate issuance anomalies that signal domain takeover or phishing campaigns before they scale. Certificate Transparency logs index roughly 15 billion certificates, giving you real-time visibility into what's been legitimately issued against your domains and competitors' infrastructure. Skip this if you need automated alerting or integration into your SIEM; crt.sh is a lookup tool, not a monitoring platform, and catching malicious certificates requires manual checks or custom scripting.
