Maigret vs Social Analyzer: Deep Username OSINT Compared

Maigret and Social Analyzer are the two most thorough free tools for username investigations. Both go beyond a simple found or not-found list: they pull information from profile pages, visualize links between accounts and offer a web interface as well as a command line. They make different trade-offs, though, and one is maintained far more actively than the other. This comparison uses each project's README, its repository data and its package registry entries as of October 14, 2026.

Trademark note: Maigret and Social Analyzer are the names of their respective projects. WhatsMyName Apps is independent and not affiliated with either. Credit for both tools goes to their authors, soxoj and qeeqbox, and their contributors.

The short answer

• Maigret is the better default: far more sites, recursive search, many report formats, easy installs on every platform, an MIT license and frequent releases.
• Social Analyzer is worth it when you want a confidence score for every match, browser-based and OCR detection for tricky sites, or screenshots of each profile.

At a glance (checked October 14, 2026)

	Maigret	Social Analyzer
Repository	soxoj/maigret	qeeqbox/social-analyzer
Sites	About 5,900 (README); a default run checks the top 500 by traffic	1,000+ (README)
Result style	Found / not found, plus extracted profile data	Rating from 0 to 100 (No, Maybe, Yes) per profile
Detection	HTTP checks with partial block and CAPTCHA handling; Tor and I2P sites	HTTP library or webdriver, with normal, advanced, special and OCR layers
Pivoting	Recursive search on discovered usernames and IDs; --permute for name variants	Multi-profile correlation; name permutations and analysis
Output	HTML, PDF, XMind, JSON, CSV, TXT, interactive graph, Neo4j script	JSON; metadata graph and screenshots in the web app
Interfaces	CLI, web UI (maigret --web), Python library, Docker, Windows .exe, snap	Web app (preferred), Node CLI, Python CLI and package
Needs	Python 3.10+ (or the standalone builds)	Node.js or Python; Firefox ESR and Tesseract for webdriver and OCR modes
License	MIT	AGPL-3.0
GitHub stars	38,967	24,303
Latest activity	Release v0.6.6 on Sep 18, 2026; commits this week	Last commit Jan 12, 2026; Python package last published May 2022 (v0.45)

Maigret in brief

Maigret started as a Sherlock fork and now "collects a dossier on a person by username only". Its README lists about 5,900 supported sites. A default run checks the 500 highest-ranked by traffic; -a scans everything and --tags narrows by category or country. It extracts details from profile pages and site APIs, follows new usernames and IDs it finds, and refreshes its site database from GitHub once a day.

Reports are where it stands out: HTML, PDF, XMind, JSON, CSV, plain text, an interactive D3 graph and a Neo4j import script. There is a built-in web UI with a results graph, official Docker images for the CLI and the web UI, a Windows standalone executable and a snap. An optional --ai mode writes a short investigation summary through an OpenAI-compatible API. Our Maigret guide covers setup.

Social Analyzer in brief

Social Analyzer describes itself as an "API, CLI, and Web App for analyzing & finding a person's profile across +1000 social media \ websites". Its distinguishing idea is the rating: each detection module contributes to a score from 0 to 100, labelled No, Maybe or Yes, which the README says is "intended to have fewer false positives". You can filter results by good, maybe and bad.

It can find profiles with a plain HTTP library or by driving a real browser, and it adds OCR detection for pages that render text as images. The web app (the README calls it "Preferred!") adds metadata and pattern extraction, a force-directed graph, profile screenshots, and name analysis such as origins and similar names. The README notes that some law enforcement agencies use the project, with a detection database different from the public one. See our Social Analyzer overview.

The differences that matter

Coverage

Maigret checks several times more sites, and its top-500 default keeps routine runs fast. Social Analyzer's 1,000+ list is smaller but still well beyond Sherlock's.

How confident is a match?

Social Analyzer wins here. A 0 to 100 rating helps when you have dozens of hits and need to decide which to check first. Maigret reports a match or no match, and instead lets you judge by the profile data it extracts.

Hard-to-check sites

Social Analyzer's webdriver and OCR layers can read pages that a plain request cannot. The cost is setup: you need a browser and Tesseract installed, and runs are heavier. Maigret takes a lighter route, detecting and partly getting past blocks and CAPTCHAs over plain HTTP.

Reports and hand-off

Maigret is far ahead. PDF and HTML for colleagues, CSV and JSON for analysis, a graph for link analysis and Neo4j for larger cases. Social Analyzer saves JSON and shows its graph in the web app.

Maintenance

Maigret has regular releases and was updated days before we checked. Social Analyzer's repository was last updated in January 2026, and the Python package on PyPI has not been republished since May 2022, so the pip install may lag behind the repository. Clone the repository if you want the latest code.

License

Maigret's MIT license lets you embed it almost anywhere. Social Analyzer's AGPL-3.0 requires you to share your source if you modify it and offer it as a network service, which matters to teams building internal or commercial platforms.

Which one should you use?

• Broad first pass with a report at the end: Maigret.
• Triage a long list of possible matches: Social Analyzer's ratings.
• JavaScript-heavy or image-based profile pages: Social Analyzer with webdriver and OCR.
• Building it into your own product or pipeline: Maigret (MIT, Python library).
• Quick look without installing anything: a browser tool; see the best free OSINT username tools.

For a lighter comparison of the classic trio, read Sherlock vs Maigret vs WhatsMyName.

A browser option

WhatsMyName Apps is a lighter alternative for a first look. It runs in the browser, checks 3,165 sites drawn from the WhatsMyName, Sherlock and Maigret lists, separates Blocked and Unknown from Not found, shows public names and avatars where available, and exports JSON or CSV. It does not search recursively, score matches or build PDF reports, so Maigret and Social Analyzer stay ahead for deep investigations. Try a username; it is not stored or logged.