Unicornscan review
A distributed scanner for teams that want stored, enriched network analysis.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Unicornscan is an open-source, self-hosted network reconnaissance and port-scanning tool for security researchers and network administrators. It uses an asynchronous stimulus-and-response architecture to target TCP, UDP, and ARP services across CIDR networks and port ranges. The tool supports macOS and Linux, with a web interface for analysis, and is available as a free plan. Its focus is network-level discovery rather than a broad, general-purpose security workflow.
Its strongest fit is distributed scanning with retained analysis. Master, sender, and listener components support scanning across multiple machines, while PostgreSQL stores results for later review. The Alicorn web interface can present scan history, host and port statistics, operating-system results, and network topology. GeoIP databases add country, city, and ASN enrichment, giving teams more context around discovered hosts. Docker and PostgreSQL fit naturally into deployments that already use containerized services and relational storage.
Unicornscan also offers substantial scan depth for an open-source tool: asynchronous stateless TCP, UDP, and ARP scanning, protocol-specific UDP payloads, TCP connect scanning, service banner collection, OS fingerprinting through osdetect, and TCP traceroute. That breadth comes with operational overhead. The command-line deployment and multi-component distributed architecture are better suited to teams comfortable managing self-hosted scanning infrastructure than to users seeking a guided, low-maintenance interface. Choose Unicornscan when distributed operation, PostgreSQL-backed results, and network topology data matter. Choose an alternative when simpler setup or broader platform coverage is the priority.
Unicornscan pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Asynchronous TCP, UDP, and ARP scanning across CIDR networks
- Distributed architecture with OS, service, traceroute, and topology data
- PostgreSQL storage, Alicorn analysis, and GeoIP enrichment
- Where it doesn't
- Self-hosted deployment requires command-line and infrastructure work
- Distributed scanning involves separate master, sender, and listener components
- Platform coverage is narrower than general-purpose scanning tools
Unicornscan fact sheet, pricing and score →
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