maigret

Maigret is an open-source OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) tool that searches for a person across the internet using just their username. You give it a single username, and it checks over 3,000 websites — social networks, forums, photo platforms, dating sites, coding communities — to see if that username exists anywhere, then compiles everything it finds into a report.

The tool is aimed at investigators, security researchers, journalists, and anyone doing background research on a person. It goes beyond a simple username check by also extracting profile information from found accounts, following links between profiles to find additional usernames, and building a connected map of a person's online presence. Reports can be exported as PDF, HTML, interactive graphs, or spreadsheets.

For practical use: type in a username you found on one platform, and Maigret tells you where else that person appears online — often revealing real names, locations, profile photos, and connections between accounts. An optional AI analysis mode can summarize the findings in plain English. There is also a Telegram bot if you do not want to install anything.

Built in Python and free to use, it requires no API keys for basic operation. Commercial use requires a separate license. It is used by professional social media intelligence platforms as a core engine.

For a founder or vibe coder: this is a ready-to-run investigation tool, not a building block. If you are building a people-search or background-check product, you could embed it as a Python library, but most users just run it directly from the command line.