Most people looking for an IDCrawl alternative are not unhappy with IDCrawl. They typed a handle, got a clean page of profiles for free, and then hit the limits of the page: no export, a fixed set of mainstream platforms, and a "View Report" button that leads to somebody else's paid product. This post shows exactly what IDCrawl returned for one username on 2026-09-05, then shows what the same handle produced on OSINTsearch the same afternoon, so you can judge the difference on real output rather than on feature lists.
Disclosure: I build OSINTsearch, so read that column with the usual care. Everything quoted from IDCrawl is what its result page displayed on the day, with no account and no payment. The OSINTsearch numbers come from the JSON export of the same search, which I have kept.
What IDCrawl does well
Credit first, because IDCrawl earns it. Its username search is genuinely free: no login, no card, no visible quota, no captcha on a single search. That alone puts it ahead of most consumer people-search sites, which treat the search box as the top of a funnel and hide everything useful behind a subscription.
It also returns content, not booleans. A lot of tools that rank for "username search" are availability checkers, which tell you whether a name is taken and nothing more. IDCrawl shows the display name, the bio, the follower count and any outbound links it can parse. On the Instagram card for the test handle it printed "David Bombal - @davidbombal", "tap.bio", "Twitter: @davidbombal", a YouTube URL and "516k followers". The Twitter card added "England", the personal website and "180k followers". The SoundCloud card carried a full multi-line bio with Discord, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube links. That is what makes a handle result actionable, and IDCrawl does it in a few seconds on a page with a stable, shareable URL.
One more thing I like: the footer carries a plain FCRA disclaimer plus a "Remove my info" route, which is the right way to run a site like this.
What the IDCrawl result page showed
The page for the test handle is titled "Username search results for davidbombal across 40+ platforms, including associated real people". Each platform card carried a verbatim state, "Profile found" or "Not taken".
| State | Count | Platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Profile found | 15 | Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, YouTube, Bluesky, Mastodon, Twitch, Roblox, Pinterest, SoundCloud, Tumblr, GitHub |
| Not taken | 17 | Facebook, Vimeo, Tinder, Chess.com, Flickr, OnlyFans, Spotify, Medium, Wikipedia, DeviantArt, Tripadvisor, eBay, Etsy, Poshmark, Whatnot, VSCO and others behind a "+5" expander |
Follower counts were rounded on most cards: 516k on Instagram, 180k on Twitter, 352k on TikTok, 56k on Threads. Bluesky showed "1,904 followers", Mastodon "1 follower" and Pinterest "1 boards - 977 pins - 60 followers". YouTube got a channel description snippet with no count.
Below the social cards sat three sponsored blocks, and this is where the business model lives. "Related People" offered one result, labeled "Sponsored by Spokeo - Paid Service - Contact info, wealth data & criminal records - View Report". "Secret Profiles" guessed two email addresses built from the handle and offered a Spokeo search on each. "Email Addresses" offered the same guesses through BeenVerified. Nothing in the social results was blurred; the paywall is entirely in the hand-off. IDCrawl publishes no price list of its own because the paid step happens on another company's site.
The same handle on OSINTsearch
I ran the same username through OSINTsearch about an hour later. The export header reads: 770 endpoints scanned, 59 profiles found, 29.2 seconds. Eleven of IDCrawl's fifteen hits are in that list: Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, Mastodon, Twitch, Pinterest, SoundCloud, Tumblr and GitHub. The other 48 hits are where the two tools stop being comparable.
A mainstream-40 list is built around the platforms a US consumer recognizes. A 770-endpoint sweep goes into the places a technical person actually leaves traces: Docker Hub, GitHub, HackerOne, Kaggle, Replit, StackBlitz, CodersRank, VirusTotal, LeakIX, TradingView, Calendly, Cash App, an ENS name, a Tap Bio page, Amazon storefront, Behance, ThemeForest, CodeCanyon, Odysee, Kick, Steemit, Hive, Truth Social, Gettr, Xbox, NameMC and Minecraft all returned a profile for this handle. None of them is on IDCrawl's card list, and for an investigator they are often the interesting ones. A Docker Hub account with a creation date, a HackerOne handle, or a wallet address behind an ENS name says more about who a person is than a rounded follower count.
The per-hit depth is the second difference. On the IDCrawl Instagram card the follower figure is "516k". In the export it is 526,041, with a numeric user id, a stated location and an account creation month. The Twitter row carries 183,324 followers, 14,916 posts, the 2009 join timestamp, the blue-verified flag and the parsed website. The GitHub row carries the numeric id, 17 repos, 8,284 followers, the bio "Author, Instructor and YouTuber" and a linked Twitter account. The YouTube row carries 3.1 million subscribers, 2,220 videos, a join date of 2008 and four outbound links, including a LinkedIn URL.
{
"platform": "github",
"username": "davidbombal",
"user_id": "22679022",
"display_name": "David Bombal",
"followers": 8284,
"repos": 17,
"bio": "Author, Instructor and YouTuber",
"website": "https://www.youtube.com/davidbombal",
"linked_socials": [{"platform": "twitter", "url": "https://twitter.com/davidbombal"}]
}Across the 59 hits, 47 rows carry a display name, 41 a profile picture, 41 a platform user id, 26 a creation date, 23 a bio, 15 an exact follower count and 14 a location. Every one of those values is in the export, and every one is shown on the free plan.
The identity block IDCrawl does not attempt
IDCrawl's "Related People" card is a bridge from handle to human, but it is a sponsored bridge, and the answer lives on Spokeo. OSINTsearch builds the bridge from the search itself. The export's identity section names a probable person, "David Bombal", with the 18 platforms that agree on it and the four alternative spellings (a store, a slides account, a Tumblr and a HackerOne first name). It names a probable location, United Kingdom, with its three sources. It lists two username variants, the plain handle and davidbombal.eth, two websites with the platforms that cited them, eight profile pictures and eight cross-platform links. Nothing in that block is guessed from an email pattern; it is assembled from what the profiles said.
That is the "who is behind this handle" question answered inside the tool rather than handed to a data broker, and it is the whole subject of the who is behind a username guide.
Choosing an IDCrawl alternative
| IDCrawl | OSINTsearch | |
|---|---|---|
| Price to see results | $0 | $0, 15 searches a week, every field shown |
| Platforms per search | "40+" (stated) | 770 username endpoints |
| Profiles found, davidbombal | 15 | 59 |
| Fields per hit | Name, bio, rounded followers, links | Name, bio, exact counts, user id, joined date, location, links, last active where exposed |
| Identity summary | Sponsored Spokeo card | Built from the hits, with sources |
| Email and phone | Handed to Spokeo and BeenVerified | 203 email and 24 phone modules in the same account |
| Export | None | CSV and JSON from $20 a month |
| Deep search | No | Depths 1 to 4 on Pro |
If you want a fast, free, shareable page for a mainstream handle, IDCrawl remains a fine choice and I would not talk anyone out of it. Pick OSINTsearch when the handle belongs to someone technical, when you need the numbers rather than the rounding, when you want the identity worked out from the profiles instead of a broker, or when the result has to leave the browser as a file. The free plan runs the full 770-endpoint sweep and shows every field on every card, with 15 searches a week and no card required. Starter at $20 a month raises that to 50 and adds CSV and JSON export plus breach name and date; Pro at $49.99 gives 500 a week, full breach records and deep search. The pricing page has the full matrix, and the free vs Pro post shows the same cards on both plans.
Two related reads: the best username OSINT tools roundup puts IDCrawl and a dozen others side by side, and the Social Catfish alternative post covers the other big consumer brand in this space, which answers a different question again.
FAQ
Is IDCrawl free to use?
Yes. The username search ran with no account, no card and no visible quota, and the social results were shown in full. IDCrawl makes money from sponsored "View Report" cards that lead to Spokeo and BeenVerified, and from display ads.
How many platforms does IDCrawl check?
Its result page states "40+ platforms". For the test handle it rendered 15 found and 17 not taken, with a "+5" expander for more. OSINTsearch scanned 770 username endpoints on the same handle and lists each one in the export.
Does IDCrawl have an export or API?
No export and no advertised API. Results are meant to be read in the browser. OSINTsearch exports CSV and JSON on Starter and above, and offers API access on Enterprise.
Can the free OSINTsearch plan replace IDCrawl?
For the search itself, yes: 15 full sweeps a week with every field visible. You pay only for volume, export, breach records and deep search. Neither tool is a consumer reporting agency, and neither may be used for employment, tenancy, credit or insurance decisions.
Where to go next
Run your own handle on both. IDCrawl's page will tell you what a curious stranger sees in ten seconds; the OSINTsearch export will tell you what a patient one can assemble in thirty. The username search tool guide walks through reading the export field by field.
