WhatsMyName Alternative for Investigators Who Need Saved Reports

The best WhatsMyName alternative for an investigator who runs username searches as part of the job is a hosted tool that keeps the result: saved runs, a score for which profiles belong together, bulk lists and an exportable evidence report. UsernameLookup does that on 300+ calibrated public sites, and its site detection data includes the WhatsMyName dataset itself, so you keep the coverage you trust and add the casework around it.

WhatsMyName deserves its reputation. Micah Hoffman started it in 2015, contributors around the world keep its list of more than 700 sites working, and the web interface at whatsmyname.app lets anyone run a check in a browser and download a CSV. If you are a student learning OSINT or you need one quick answer, use it. This article is for the people whose username searches end up in a ticket, a dispute file or a report to counsel, and who have started to feel where a free browser tool stops.

Is WhatsMyName free?

Yes. The WhatsMyName dataset is published on GitHub under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, and the whatsmyname.app web interface is free to use without an account. It filters results by category and exports to CSV. What you do not get is an account, saved history, a team workspace, an API from the project or any monitoring after the search ends.

That is not a flaw. WhatsMyName describes itself as a dataset, and since May 2023 the project has focused on the data file rather than its own checker scripts. Most of the tooling around it, from command line clients to Maltego transforms, is built by other people. The question for a professional team is which of those tools fits a repeatable workflow.

Where a free browser lookup slows an investigation down

Picture a fraud analyst working a ring of chargebacks. Twelve orders share a shipping pattern, and the customer accounts use eight different usernames. The analyst needs to know which handles have a public footprint, which ones look like the same person, and what was visible on the day of the review, because the dispute may be argued months later.

On a single-search web tool, that is eight separate runs and eight CSV files. Somebody merges them in a spreadsheet, opens dozens of profile links by hand to judge which hits are real, and takes screenshots for the file. The next morning, a teammate who picks up the case has no idea what was already checked. Three months later, nobody can prove what the profiles looked like on the day.

The lookup itself took seconds. Everything around it took the afternoon. That is the work a paid alternative should remove.

The batch

Investigations rarely start with one name. You want to paste a list from a ticket export or an order report and get one table back, with each handle as a row, rather than repeating the same search over and over.

The judgment

A common handle can return 30 hits, and most of them are strangers who picked the same word. A raw list of URLs leaves the hardest part, deciding which profiles connect, entirely to you. A useful tool scores the found profiles on shared signals such as display name, avatar, bio and cross links, and shows the reasons so you can check its work.

The record

Public profiles change and disappear. A dated snapshot of the URL, the HTTP status code and the page title, stored with the case and exportable as a PDF, is what lets you show a reviewer, a payment processor or a lawyer what was public when you looked.

Is there a WhatsMyName alternative with saved reports?

Yes. UsernameLookup's OSINT username search saves every run to your workspace, keeps evidence snapshots with timestamps, status codes and page titles for each found profile, and exports CSV on every plan and a PDF report from the Investigator plan up. Case notes stay attached to the lookup, so a colleague can pick up exactly where you stopped.

Rechecks are part of the same record. Run a handle again a month later and the result shows a diff against the earlier run: profiles that appeared, profiles that went away, and sites that changed state. For impersonation cases, a handle can go into monitoring so new matching profiles reach you by email, or by Slack and webhook on the brand plans.

WhatsMyName alternatives compared

Here is how the common options line up for a professional buyer. Each one is good at something, and the free tools win on price. Open source projects change quickly, so treat the columns for them as a snapshot and check their repositories before you rely on a detail.

If your team came to WhatsMyName from the command line, our page on running a Sherlock username search online walks through that switch in more detail.

How many sites does WhatsMyName check compared with UsernameLookup?

The WhatsMyName project lists more than 700 sites. UsernameLookup checks 300+ public sites, and the smaller number is deliberate. Every site in our catalog is tested against usernames we know are taken and usernames we know are free, and a site only counts toward the total when it answers both correctly. Sites that return ambiguous pages, demand a login or rate limit heavily drop out of the count.

When a site that is in the catalog cannot give a clean answer during your lookup, the result says unknown with the time of the check. It never turns a guess into a hit. In an investigation, a false match is worse than a visible gap, because it can send a reviewer after the wrong person. Adult sites are excluded from the catalog.

Can I search a list of usernames at once?

Yes. The Investigator plan and above accept bulk lists of up to 100 usernames per run. You get one matrix with each handle as a row, the found, free and unknown counts, and the scored profiles for each name, and you can export the whole batch to CSV or PDF.

A practical habit from fraud teams: run the full batch against social, developer and marketplace categories first, sort by the number of found profiles, and spend your manual review time on the handles with the strongest footprint. Throwaway handles with no public presence at all are a signal too, and our article on reverse username lookup for fraud teams covers how to use that signal fairly.

Is it legal to use a username search tool for investigations?

Searching public profile pages is generally lawful in the US, but how you use the result matters. Using it to stalk, harass or expose a private person is not acceptable, and in many cases not legal. Professional use means a clear purpose, such as fraud prevention, impersonation response or an authorized investigation, and collecting only what that purpose needs.

UsernameLookup only reads public profile pages, never logs in to platforms and never tells you who runs an account. Anyone can put a handle on our opt out list, and that name is suppressed before every lookup. Our guide to responsible OSINT username search sets out a defensible method, and none of this is legal advice for your specific case.

How much does a WhatsMyName alternative cost?

UsernameLookup Pro costs $24 a month billed yearly, or $49 month to month, for 300 lookups, saved history with diffs, CSV export and 1,000 API calls. Investigator, at $149 a month or $74 a month billed yearly, is the plan most investigation teams choose: 2,000 lookups, bulk lists of 100, three seats, confidence scores, case notes, evidence snapshots, PDF reports and 10,000 API calls.

Brand Monitoring and Brand Enterprise add hourly lookalike scanning, executive watch and more seats for teams that protect a brand rather than work individual cases. Every limit is on the pricing page. Your first lookup is a one-time demo, so you can run a handle from an open case before deciding.

In cost terms, the math is simple. If an analyst spends two hours per case merging CSV files, opening links and taking screenshots, and works ten cases a month, Investigator pays for itself well before the end of the month. The bigger return is the case you can still defend when it is reviewed.

Is it worth paying when WhatsMyName is free?

For learning, research and one-off curiosity, no. Use WhatsMyName, and if you are able, contribute a site fix back to the project. For teams, paying makes sense when at least one of these is true: you search more than a few handles a week, someone else needs to read or review the result, the case may be disputed later, or a handle needs watching after the search.

Fraud teams in particular tend to tick all four. When a username review supports a payment dispute, the evidence often ends up next to the order data in a chargeback response, and pairing it with dedicated chargeback prevention software keeps both halves of the case in a shape a card network will accept.

Switching from WhatsMyName in one afternoon

There is nothing to migrate, because the free web tool keeps no history. Take the handles from your open cases, paste them into a bulk run, and export the result to the case file. Add the handles that matter to monitoring. From then on, every search your team runs is saved, scored and ready to show a reviewer.

Run a handle from your current case in the username search and see the scored result for yourself.