SpiderFoot vs Sherlock
SpiderFoot
SpiderFoot is an open-source (MIT) tool that automates OSINT collection for threat intelligence and for mapping an organisation's attack surface. Given a target such as a domain, IP address, email address or name, it runs over 200 modules against data sources and correlates the results, using a YAML-configurable correlation engine with 37 pre-defined rules. It runs as a self-hosted web application or from the command line, supports Docker deployment, can search the dark web through Tor, and can call other tools such as Nmap and DNSTwist. The project has been on GitHub since 2012.
Pros
- Free and open source under the MIT licence
- Broad automated collection from one scan
- Self-hosted, so scan data stays on your own infrastructure
Things to check
- Self-hosted: you install, run and maintain it
Pricing: Free and open source (MIT).
Sherlock
Sherlock is an open-source (MIT) command-line tool that checks whether a username is registered on more than 400 social networks and websites. It can search several usernames at once and saves the accounts it finds to text, CSV or Excel files, with options for proxies, timeouts and checking a single site. It installs with pipx, pip or uv, or runs in Docker. The project has been on GitHub since 2018.
Pros
- Free and open source under the MIT licence
- Widely used: more than 90,000 stars on GitHub
- Simple to install and script
Things to check
- Command line only; no web interface
- Reports whether an account exists, with little profile data
Pricing: Free and open source (MIT).