# Username search tools: what sherlock, maigret, naminter and socialscan each find Four free username search tools side by side, from their manifests. What each takes, what it finds, what it needs, and when to pick it. Published 25 Oct 2026 by OTInstaller. Four open-source username search tools on the registry look alike but answer different questions. [sherlock](https://otinstaller.com/osintverse-community/sherlock) checks 400+ sites and lists the accounts that exist. [maigret](https://otinstaller.com/osintverse-community/maigret) can check 3,000+ sites and also collects the details those profiles expose. [naminter](https://otinstaller.com/osintverse-community/naminter) works through the WhatsMyName site list with browser-like requests. [socialscan](https://otinstaller.com/osintverse-community/socialscan) asks a handful of major platforms and also takes an email address. None needs an API key, and each is a single `ot run` away. What follows comes from each package's manifest: what it declares it takes, finds and needs. There are no ratings or scores here. Each tool's page shows whether it passed its nightly health check. ## At a glance - **sherlock** takes a username, checks 400+ sites, and finds accounts and their URLs. - **maigret** takes a username, checks 3,000+ sites (the 500 most popular by default), and finds accounts, URLs and details about the person. - **naminter** takes a username, checks the sites on the WhatsMyName list, and finds accounts and their URLs. - **socialscan** takes a username or an email address, checks a handful of major platforms, and finds accounts. sherlock, maigret and socialscan are Python packages from PyPI, which `ot` builds into a container of their own; naminter is a Docker image. The packages stop a run after 15 minutes (sherlock and naminter), 20 minutes (maigret) or 5 minutes (socialscan). All four go online, and all four declare the same ethics flags: they don't contact the person, don't log in to any account, and return personal data, so handle the results under your legal basis. ## sherlock: where the username exists ``` ot run osintverse-community/sherlock u:johndoe ``` Sherlock asks each of 400+ sites whether a profile with that name exists, giving each 20 seconds, and the package prints only the ones that do. Its output is a line per account, `[+] GitHub: https://www.github.com/github`, which `ot` turns into URL and domain entities. Pick it for a first sweep of where a handle is in use. `--site GitHub` checks one site. Installing it by hand goes wrong in a few familiar ways; the post on [installing Sherlock](https://otinstaller.com/blog/how-to-install-sherlock) covers them, and what its saved result looks like. ## maigret: the accounts and what they say ``` ot run osintverse-community/maigret u:johndoe ``` Maigret knows 3,000+ sites and checks the 500 most popular by default; the `top_sites` input changes the number, and `--site` checks one. Besides accounts and URLs, its manifest declares a `person` output: it reads the profiles it finds for the details they expose. Pick it when you want more than a list of links, and allow for a longer run: the package gives it up to 20 minutes. ## naminter: the WhatsMyName list ``` ot run osintverse-community/naminter u:johndoe --category coding ``` Naminter works through the WhatsMyName list of sites, sending requests that look like a browser's. `--category` limits it to one WhatsMyName category, such as `coding` or `social`. It is the one Docker image of the four: its package installs the upstream release from PyPI together with the Pango libraries its PDF export needs, system libraries that pip can't install for you. Pick it when you want WhatsMyName's coverage of a username. ## socialscan: a few platforms, an email too ``` ot run osintverse-community/socialscan --query johndoe ot run osintverse-community/socialscan --query someone@example.com ``` Socialscan covers far fewer platforms than the others but uses their own availability checks, and its single `query` input takes a username or an email address. In our test run with an email address it answered eight platforms in under three seconds, two of them with a rate-limit error: an error means "ask again later", not "no account". Pick it to settle the question for the big platforms quickly, or when what you have is an email address. ## Running more than one You rarely need just one. These commands run several against the same username and save every result in the same shape: ``` ot playbook username-investigation u:johndoe ot run --all u:johndoe ot auto johndoe ``` The bundled `username-investigation` playbook runs sherlock and maigret, and offers to install them first. `ot run --all` runs every installed tool that takes a username, and `ot auto` guesses that `johndoe` is a username and does the same. Then `ot extract sherlock` collects what every saved sherlock run found, and `ot diff sherlock johndoe` shows what changed between the last two runs, which is useful when you check the same handle again a month later. ## Other username tools on the registry - **[user-scanner](https://otinstaller.com/osintverse-community/user-scanner)** checks 2,700+ sites for a username or an email address, and skips the checks that could send the account owner an email or alert. - **[social-analyzer](https://otinstaller.com/osintverse-community/social-analyzer)** finds profiles across 1,000+ websites and gives each one a confidence level of its own. - **[investigo](https://otinstaller.com/osintverse-community/investigo)** checks which of hundreds of websites have an account with the username. - **[osgint](https://otinstaller.com/osintverse-community/osgint)** looks up one GitHub user: profile, SSH and GPG keys, and the email addresses in their commits. - **[username-permutations](https://otinstaller.com/osintverse-community/username-permutations)** works the other way round: it turns a person's full name into likely usernames to search with the tools above, offline. [Every tool that takes a username](https://otinstaller.com/input/username) is listed on one page, with what each finds and whether it needs a key. The [username investigation guide](https://otinstaller.com/guides/osintverse-community/username-investigation) walks through a whole case, from the first search to writing it up.