Features, pricing, ratings, and pros and cons, compared head to head.
crt.sh is a free external attack surface management tool. SurfaceDiff is a commercial external attack surface management tool by SurfaceDiff. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best external attack surface management fit for your security stack. Independent and vendor-neutral: our scores and rankings are earned, never bought — sponsored placement is always labeled.
Based on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, integrations, company size fit, here is our conclusion:
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.
Bash script for subdomain enumeration via crt.sh certificate transparency logs.
Continuous external attack surface monitoring that shows what changed between scans.
Access NIST CSF 2.0 data from thousands of security products via MCP to assess your stack coverage.
Access via MCPNo reviews yet
No reviews yet
Explore more tools in this category or create a security stack with your selections.
Common questions about comparing crt.sh vs SurfaceDiff for your external attack surface management needs.
crt.sh: Bash script for subdomain enumeration via crt.sh certificate transparency logs. Core capabilities include Subdomain enumeration via certificate transparency logs, Automated querying of crt.sh website, Parsing and filtering of crt.sh output..
SurfaceDiff: Continuous external attack surface monitoring that shows what changed between scans. built by SurfaceDiff. Core capabilities include Domain baseline scan for publicly exposed assets, Subdomain discovery, DNS record enumeration..
Both serve the External Attack Surface Management market but differ in approach, feature depth, and target audience.
crt.sh differentiates with Subdomain enumeration via certificate transparency logs, Automated querying of crt.sh website, Parsing and filtering of crt.sh output. SurfaceDiff differentiates with Domain baseline scan for publicly exposed assets, Subdomain discovery, DNS record enumeration.
crt.sh and SurfaceDiff serve similar External Attack Surface Management use cases: both are External Attack Surface Management tools, both cover DNS Security, Subdomain Enumeration, Security Scanning. Key differences: crt.sh is Free while SurfaceDiff is Commercial. Review the feature comparison above to determine which fits your requirements.
Get strategic cybersecurity insights in your inbox