WhatsMyName vs Maigret
WhatsMyName
WhatsMyName is a community-maintained dataset of more than 700 websites and the rules for checking whether a username is registered on each, published under a Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 licence. Other OSINT and digital-footprint tools build on it, and whatsmyname.app is a free browser-based tool built directly on the dataset that needs no installation. The project has been on GitHub since 2015.
Pros
- Free to use in the browser with no installation
- Open dataset other tools can reuse
- Maintained by the community since 2015
Things to check
- Checks whether an account exists; it does not build a profile
- Coverage depends on community updates to the site rules
Pricing: Free. Dataset licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Maigret
Maigret is an open-source (MIT) tool that collects a profile of a person from a username alone. Its project description says it checks about 6,000 websites. It extracts the information available on the profiles it finds, follows links to other accounts, and searches again recursively using any new usernames and IDs it discovers. Results can be filtered by site category and country and exported as HTML or PDF reports. It installs with pip, runs from a terminal or a web interface, and is also offered through a community Telegram bot.
Pros
- Free and open source under the MIT licence
- Recursive search turns one username into a wider set of leads
- Report output ready to share
Things to check
- Self-hosted: you install and run it
- Site count is stated by the project and not independently checked
Pricing: Free and open source (MIT).