Anti-Malware · head-to-head
MalShare vs URLScan.io
MalShare is a community-run, free public malware sample repository: registered users pull hash lists, per-sample metadata, and the raw binaries themselves through a single api.php endpoint, or upload their own finds back to the pool. A live GET against that endpoint with an invalid key returned a plain-text "user specified in api_key GET variable does not exist" error rather than any CORS header, reconfirming API-key auth over HTTPS and reconfirming cors as no. Standard registered keys are free and capped around 2,000 calls a day, a limit MalShare says it will raise on request.
urlscan.io submits URLs to a real, sandboxed browser and publishes the resulting screenshot, DOM, requested domains, and detected technologies, plus a searchable archive of past scans, all as JSON. A live unauthenticated GET against its search endpoint succeeded immediately (returning IP-scoped X-Rate-Limit headers), and a follow-up OPTIONS preflight returned Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *, resolving cors to yes and confirming HTTPS; submitting new scans instead requires an API-Key header. Public scanning is free within per-minute/hour/day rate limits, with a paid urlscan Pro tier for vetted researchers needing deeper private search.
| MalShare | URLScan.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | API Key | API Key |
| Pricing | free | freemium |
| Formats | JSON, Binary | JSON |
| CORS | no | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
URLScan.io supports CORS, while MalShare doesn't — pick URLScan.io for direct browser calls.