Scanward vs Hardenize: Which Security Monitor Fits Your Budget?

Both Scanward and Hardenize monitor your domain's security posture. They cover similar ground -- SSL/TLS, DNS, HTTP headers, email authentication -- but they target very different audiences. Hardenize is built for large enterprises managing hundreds of hosts. Scanward is built for small businesses, freelancers, and agencies managing a handful of domains. This guide breaks down the differences so you can pick the right tool for your situation and budget.

What Is Hardenize?

Hardenize was founded by Ivan Ristic, the creator of SSL Labs -- one of the most widely used SSL testing tools on the internet. The platform launched as a dedicated domain and network security monitoring service aimed at organizations with large internet-facing footprints.

In October 2022, Hardenize was acquired by Red Sift and is now branded as Red Sift ASM (Attack Surface Management). The core monitoring technology remains, but it has been folded into Red Sift's broader security platform.

Hardenize is enterprise-focused by design. Its plans are built around monitoring 250 to 500+ hosts, with 25 to 50+ user seats per organization. Key features include:

• Automated asset discovery -- discovers internet-facing hosts across your infrastructure
• Daily monitoring -- tracks SSL/TLS, DNS, HTTP headers, and network configuration changes
• Certificate inventory -- centralized view of all certificates across your domains
• Certificate Transparency monitoring -- alerts when new certificates are issued for your domains
• REST APIs -- programmatic access to monitoring data
• SSO/SAML integration -- enterprise identity management
• Cloud integrations -- connects to AWS, Azure, and GCP for asset discovery
• Network scanning -- port scanning and service detection

Pricing is not publicly listed. Hardenize requires a sales demo to get started. There are Business and Enterprise tiers, with additional hosts available at approximately $2/month each. Billing is annual. Based on the scope of features and host counts, pricing is estimated to be in the hundreds to thousands of dollars per year range, though exact numbers are not publicly documented.

Hardenize is best suited for large enterprises with hundreds of internet-facing hosts, dedicated security teams, and the budget for enterprise-grade attack surface management tooling.

What Is Scanward?

Scanward is built for a different audience entirely: small and medium businesses, freelancers, and managed service providers (MSPs) who manage anywhere from 1 to 50 domains. There are no sales calls. You sign up, add your domains, and start monitoring immediately.

Scanward checks six critical areas of your domain's security posture:

• SSL/TLS -- certificate validity, chain integrity, protocol versions, cipher suites
• DNS -- record inventory, DNSSEC validation, dangling records
• HTTP security headers -- HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Permissions-Policy, Referrer-Policy
• Email authentication -- SPF, DKIM, and DMARC record presence and policy configuration
• Uptime -- HTTP status, response latency, redirect chains, timeouts
• Domain registration -- expiry date monitoring, registrar lock status, and RDAP-based registration health checks with alerts before your domain lapses

Every domain gets a single A-F security grade based on a weighted scoring system. This gives you an at-a-glance view of where each domain stands.

Where Scanward differs most from enterprise tools is in its approach to remediation. Every failing check includes step-by-step fix instructions with copy-pasteable configuration snippets for Nginx, Apache, Cloudflare, and other common platforms. You do not just learn that something is wrong -- you learn exactly how to fix it, on your specific stack.

Scanward also sends email alerts when your security grade drops, when certificates are approaching expiry, or when a domain goes down.

Pricing is transparent and self-serve:

No annual contracts required. No sales calls. Put it on a credit card and start scanning today.

Feature Comparison

Here is a side-by-side comparison of what each platform offers. Where information about Hardenize is not publicly documented, we have noted that.

Who Should Use Hardenize?

Hardenize (Red Sift ASM) is the right choice if your organization fits this profile:

• You have 100+ internet-facing hosts and need to track them all from a single dashboard.
• You need automated asset discovery across AWS, Azure, GCP, and on-premise infrastructure.
• You have a dedicated security team and budget for enterprise security tooling.
• You need Certificate Transparency monitoring at scale to detect unauthorized certificate issuance across your domains.
• You require SSO/SAML integration to fit into your organization's identity management workflow.

Hardenize has strong pedigree. Ivan Ristic's work on SSL Labs set the standard for SSL testing, and that expertise carries through into the platform's depth of analysis. If you are a large organization with a security budget and hundreds of assets to manage, it is a solid and well-regarded choice.

Who Should Use Scanward?

Scanward is the right choice if you fit this profile:

• You manage 1 to 50 domains -- whether they are your own or your clients'.
• You want to know what is wrong AND how to fix it. Scanward does not just report issues -- it gives you platform-specific instructions with configuration snippets you can copy and paste.
• You need transparent pricing you can put on a credit card today, without scheduling a sales demo or negotiating an annual contract.
• You are an MSP or freelancer monitoring security across a portfolio of client domains.
• You do not have a dedicated security team -- you ARE the security team. Scanward is built for the developer, sysadmin, or business owner who wears multiple hats and needs security monitoring that is simple, actionable, and affordable.

The Bottom Line

Hardenize is a powerful enterprise attack surface management platform with deep roots in the SSL/TLS security community. If you are a large organization with hundreds of hosts, a security team, and an enterprise budget, it is a well-respected option that deserves serious consideration.

Scanward is built for everyone else. It is the simplest way to monitor your domains' security posture and get actionable, step-by-step fix instructions -- starting completely free. No sales calls, no annual contracts, no ambiguity about what it costs.

Both tools make the internet more secure. The right one depends on your scale, your team, and your budget.