What is the difference between the public API and the private API?

Use cases

  • Public API -  Non-commercial, or academic use.
  • Private API - Commercial or Government use is allowed.

Request Rate

  • Public API - 4 interactions per minute.
  • Private API - Custom.

Additional Information

  • Public API - Basic.
  • Private API - File and URL information provided by tools integrated in VirusTotal (PEinfo, PEiD, ExifTool, packers, sandbox links, sigcheck, etc.).

Sandbox data

  • Public API - None.
  • Private API - Behavioral execution information, on files types supported by our sandboxes.

Goodware Info

  • Public API - None.
  • Private API - We provide signals whether a given hash is goodware or not, products in which the file is found.

Search API

  • Public API - Only query by hash
  • Private API -Example searches:
    • "give me all samples that are detected with the following signature",
    • "give me all samples that are detected by more than 10 engines"
    • "give me all samples that contain a given PE section with the following hash", etc.
    • queries can be combined to build complex requests.

Notifications

  • Public API - None.
  • Private APIYARA notifications on the samples received at VirusTotal.  (Note:  This requires VirusTotal Intelligence service).

Price

  • Public API - None.
  • Private API - Paid, pricing depends on usage. Contact us tell us about your use case, and usage estimates for a quote.

Terms of service

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

  • Public API - None
  • Private API - 99% uptime guarantee, details in premium services agreement.