aws_public_ips vs GrayHatWarfare Buckets: 2026 Comparison
aws_public_ips is a free external attack surface management tool. GrayHatWarfare Buckets 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 available product data, here is our conclusion:
Security teams managing sprawling AWS environments need aws_public_ips to find what they've actually exposed across EC2, CloudFront, ELB, RDS, and other services in minutes, not weeks of manual inventory work. The tool's 642 GitHub stars reflect its adoption among practitioners who value speed and specificity over UI polish. Skip this if your organization already has a mature CSPM feeding real-time asset data into your EASM platform; aws_public_ips shines as a quick audit tool or gap-filler, not as a continuous monitoring layer.
Security teams running cloud-native applications on AWS should use GrayHatWarfare Buckets as a free first pass on S3 exposure; it finds what your CSPM misses because it actually enumerates bucket contents, not just permissions. Most open S3 breaches still stem from misconfigured public access rather than credential theft, making keyword and file extension searches genuinely effective for identifying sensitive data before attackers do. Skip this if your threat model assumes attackers have valid AWS credentials or if you need continuous monitoring; GrayHatWarfare is a point-in-time discovery tool, not a watcher.
