Shodan Academic is an innovative search engine designed to index and search the Internet for connected devices. Unlike traditional web search engines like Google or Bing, Shodan provides a comprehensive overview of the Internet, which enables users to access valuable information about various connected devices, including details about their location, operating systems, and vulnerabilities.

Shodan differs from Google in several key ways. Firstly, Shodan crawls the entire Internet, while Google only crawls the World Wide Web. Secondly, Shodan is designed for engineers and developers, and as such, requires a more advanced understanding of search query syntax in order to effectively utilize the data it provides. This membership provides users with the ability to monitor up to 16 IPs, and includes 100 query credits and 100 scan credits per month. Additionally, Academic Members have access to Shodan Maps and Shodan Images, and can use the vuln filter on the website.