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Sherlock and Maigret alternative: Seer compared

Sherlock, Maigret and the Seer social-accounts surface all take a username and check which platforms answer for it. The difference is the model: Sherlock and Maigret are free tools you run on your own machine and network, while Seer is a hosted search that also accepts email and phone and carries breach, device and US people-search records alongside.

Checked against the Sherlock and Maigret pages under Sources on October 6, 2026.

What Sherlock and Maigret is

Sherlock hunts down social media accounts by username across what its README lists as 400+ social networks. Maigret collects a dossier on a person by username only, checking a site database its README puts at 5,900 sites and extracting available profile information, with no API keys required. Both are MIT-licensed Python tools you install and run yourself.

Free, open-source username enumeration tools (Python CLIs)

Side by side.

CapabilitySherlock and MaigretSeer
Identifiers acceptedUsername onlyUsername, email, phone, domain, name, IP and more by surface
Username enumerationSherlock: 400+ sites; Maigret: 5,900 sites, 500 by default700+ platforms by username, 100+ by email, 20 by phone
Profile parsingMaigret extracts profile fields and linked accounts; recursive searchWhat each platform exposes publicly; fields and links on Pro
Unanswered checksResults depend on your IP; Maigret flags errors and unknownsNon-answering platform reported as a failure, not an absence
Breach and credential searchNot offeredBreached credential rows with source name and date
Infostealer and device dataNot offeredCompromised device records from stealer logs
People and public recordsNot offeredUS public filings: addresses, relatives, aliases
Free tierEntirely free to runFree plan: 10 searches a day, credentials masked
Monitoring and alertsNot offeredMonitors with email alerts; webhooks on Premium
APIMaigret Python library; commercial username API on requestJSON API on Premium and Team; social arranged separately
Output formatsSherlock: txt, CSV, XLSX; Maigret: HTML, PDF, JSON, CSV, graphDashboard; JSON API for breach, device and people
Pricing modelFree, open source (MIT)Free, Basic $12.99, Pro $29.99, Premium $150, Team $129 a seat
Data handling and privacyRuns on your machine; you are responsible for lawful useSearches audit-logged, never sold, not findable by others
Takedown or opt-outNone stated; checks query live sites from your machineEmail-verified suppression across all four surfaces
Geographic scopeNo region stated; Maigret filters by country tagPeople search US only

Sources

Where each is the better pick.

Sherlock and Maigret

  • Both are free and open source under the MIT licence, with no plan limits or daily search caps.
  • They run locally with no account, so no search passes through a third-party service.
  • The site lists are public files in the repository, so every check can be audited and edited.
  • They are scriptable: CLI flags, file exports and, for Maigret, an importable Python library fit into existing pipelines.
  • Maigret checks a larger site database, parses profile pages into fields, and searches recursively on IDs it finds.

Seer

  • Hosted, so there is no install, proxy setup or IP-block troubleshooting on your side.
  • A platform that does not answer is reported as a failure, not an absence.
  • Takes email and phone as well as username for account lookups.
  • The same identifier pivots into breached credentials, compromised device records and US people search.
  • Standing monitors alert you when a watched asset next appears in breach data.

Which to use.

Use Sherlock and Maigret when

  • When you need username enumeration at no cost and without an account.
  • When you need to see and edit exactly which sites are checked.
  • When you need results inside your own scripts, pipelines or Python code.
  • When you need graph, PDF or XMind reports from a username sweep.

Use Seer when

  • When you need to start from an email or phone number, not only a username.
  • When you need breach, stealer-log or US public-record results next to account hits.
  • When you need account checks without managing proxies or blocked IPs.
  • When you need ongoing monitoring with alerts rather than one-off runs.

Questions.

Is Seer just Sherlock with a UI?
No, though the overlap is real. The Seer social-accounts surface does the same kind of job as Sherlock, asking each platform about a username at search time, but it is hosted, also accepts email and phone, and sits beside breach, device and US people-search records. If you only need username enumeration, Sherlock or Maigret does that for free.
Are Sherlock and Maigret free?
Yes. Both are open source under the MIT licence and free to install and run. Maigret also offers a private daily-updated site database and a username-check API commercially, on request.
Can Sherlock or Maigret search by email or phone number?
No. Both take usernames only; Maigret describes itself as working by username only. Seer accepts username, email and phone on its social-accounts surface.
Why does Maigret or Sherlock return so many errors or missing accounts?
Maigret documents that anti-bot protection blocks many checks, especially from cloud and VPS IP ranges, and suggests timeouts, retries, lower parallelism or residential proxies. Seer runs checks from its own infrastructure and reports a platform that does not answer as a failure.
Can Sherlock or Maigret find breached passwords or stealer logs?
No. They check whether an account exists on a site. Seer searches breached credential rows and compromised device records from infostealer logs.
Which is better for automating username checks in a pipeline?
Sherlock and Maigret, if usernames are all you need: both export files, and Maigret can be imported as a Python library. The Seer API covers breach, device and people search on Premium and Team, but social accounts API access is arranged separately.

Other comparisons.

Start with one identifier.

Free runs 10 searches a day across breach and device records, and 10 each for people search and social. Withheld credentials unlock two a week, or a paid plan reveals them outright.