Maigret Deep Dive: Mapping an Entire Digital Identity From a Single Username

Key points

• What Maigret is: A free, open-source OSINT tool (MIT-licensed, 23,000+ GitHub stars, v0.5.0, August 2025) maintained by soxoj. Originally forked from Sherlock, it now covers 3,100+ sites (default scan: top 500) instead of Sherlock's 479.
• Core capability: recursive identity mapping. After finding a username on platform A, Maigret extracts cross-linked profiles ("Find me on Twitter"), auto-searches those linked usernames, and builds a network graph instead of a flat list. This network effect is its real competitive edge, since Snoop's paid tier covers more sites but lacks recursion.
• Profile parsing uses socid_extractor to pull structured fields (full name, avatar, bio, location, links) from public profile pages, with partial CAPTCHA and censorship bypass.
• Reports support HTML, PDF, XMind, JSON/NDJSON, CSV, TXT, and an interactive D3 graph. A Web UI is available via maigret --web 5000 or the soxoj/maigret:web Docker image.
• AI mode (--ai, requires OPENAI_API_KEY) only summarizes already-collected data via LLM. It is "private-detective + AI report writer," not an autonomous AI investigator.
• Architecture: Python 3.10+, async aiohttp, JSON site database auto-updated from GitHub every 24 hours, each entry defining URL templates, check type (status_code/content/redirect), claimed/unclaimed test accounts, tags, and Alexa rank. A --self-check flag audits the database.
• Anti-detection: HTTP/SOCKS/Tor/I2P proxies, per-site User-Agent and headers, configurable concurrency, TLS fingerprint simulation via curl_cffi on some sites.
• Deployment: pip install maigret, Docker (soxoj/maigret:latest, :web, :mcp), Python library import, MCP Server integration (229,409+ views on mcp.directory; works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code), community Telegram bot, and a pay-per-use Apify Actor ($0.02–$0.25/run).
• Competitive landscape:
• vs Sherlock: Maigret = investigation notebook; Sherlock = quick lookup.
• vs Snoop: Snoop wins on site count (5,300+ paid) and mobile/Termux; Maigret wins on depth and recursion.
• vs Blackbird: Blackbird supports email search and includes NSFW sites by default; Maigret has stronger recursion.
• vs FootprintIQ: commercial tool adds image intel and monitoring; Maigret is free and embeddable.
• Hard limitations: only public data, no deleted-account history, no paywalled content, no confirmed identity attribution (shared usernames, bots, homoglyphs cause false positives), and outputs are not legal evidence without human verification.
• Best-fit use cases: blue/red team digital-footprint audits, journalistic investigations, law-enforcement OSINT, HR background checks, personal exposure audits, and brand-protection lookalike hunting.
• Unsuitable for: harassment/stalking (legal risk), non-technical users who expect one-click truth, or deep content analysis (Maigret only reads public profile metadata, not posts or DMs).
• Commercial risk: maintainer soxoj sells a private 5,000+ site database with daily updates and a Username Check API; the open-source DB may lag behind, but core recursion and reporting remain free.

References

• GitHub: https://github.com/soxoj/maigret
• Docs: https://maigret.readthedocs.io
• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/maigret
• MCP Server: https://mcp.directory/servers/maigret-osint
• Apify Actor: https://apify.com/ntriqpro/maigret-actor
• Comparison: https://footprintiq.app/compare/maigret-vs-sherlock
• OSINT list: https://github.com/soxoj/osint-namecheckers-list