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While no OSINT website can replace a solid framework and talented analysts, having the right tools at your disposal can certainly help you gather intelligence faster, better, and more efficiently.
You can find hundreds of open-source intelligence resources online – with prices ranging from free to very expensive. They can also serve many different functions throughout the intelligence cycle, from data collection and processing to analysis and dissemination. The resources available to OSINT investigators keep growing each year.
This growth is exciting! If you have a problem, there’s probably a tool out there that can help you solve it. But with all of these resources, how do you know which ones are worth trying?
This post by Liferaft, an OSINT software company, will help clarify some of those decisions for you. Let’s check out some top OSINT websites and tools every analyst should keep handy in their bookmark folders.
1. The Wayback Machine
For that reason, seasoned OSINT analysts always record any information uncovered through the course of an investigation. It might be deleted or removed the next time they visit the site.
But this isn’t an option for security teams looking to review sources in the past. Thankfully, that’s where the Wayback Machine can come in handy.
This digital archive service takes screenshots of websites on a regular basis. This allows investigators to see how a page looked at various points in time.
And since launching in 1996, it has cached over 1 trillion web pages in addition to billions of videos, audio recordings, and software programs.
The Wayback Machine remains a foundational OSINT site for reconstructing what a web page looked like before content was edited, deleted, or taken offline. Security teams use it to document defacements, compare pre‑ and post‑incident messaging, and uncover historical pages that may expose sensitive information or contradict current public statements.
Practical examples include: validating claims about “deleted” corporate posts, reviewing old career or supplier pages during due‑diligence, and tracking how extremist or scam sites evolved prior to takedown. For analysts working corporate and physical security, those archived snapshots often become critical evidence during investigations and after‑action reporting
Despite these challenges, the Wayback Machine allows investigators to still uncover information that may have been removed from the web.
The homepage of CNN.com on February 6, 2008, captured by the Wayback Machine.
2. OSINT Framework
You can use any number of tactics and techniques to collect intelligence online.
But with information dispersed across the web, using different methods with each investigation becomes too time-consuming. That’s why most organizations and investigators employ a system with regard to information retrieval.
OSINT Framework provides a template for this kind of system.
OSINT Framework is still one of the best jumping‑off points for discovering tools by category, rather than a single tool you “use” in isolation. Its menu‑style interface groups resources by use case, such as social networks, domain research, dark web, or geolocation, helping analysts quickly find niche utilities they might otherwise overlook.
For example, say you’re looking for tools to assist with geolocation. Click on the ‘Geolocation’ section, then OSINT Framework will return dozens of helpful resources.
Originally, the site first catered to professionals in the cybersecurity space. In recent years, however, OSINT Framework added tools and resources for other applications as well.
A collection of free OSINT tools for geolocation research, provided by OSINT Framework.
3. Social Searcher
Monitoring social media for potential threats represents a tedious process. It becomes even more time-consuming when you have to watch several different platforms on an ongoing basis.
Social Searcher represents a quick fix to this problem.
This search engine allows users to monitor mentions of key terms across social media. That enables OSINT analysts to quickly measure and track what people are saying about an executive, brand, or location in one place.
To be clear, tools designed for marketers, like Social Searcher, do have certain limitations.
For instance, the site only scans a handful of the largest, most popular platforms. As a result, analysts could overlook valuable intelligence on smaller, alt-tech sites.
Additionally, the free version of the site limits the number of query submissions per day.
That said, it does serve as a helpful resource to get started with social media threat monitoring.
A screenshot of SocialSearcher.com
4. Distill.io
OSINT is all about creating actionable intelligence from open-source information. But combing through Google searches or constantly refreshing web pages can be time-consuming – especially if you have to monitor multiple targets.
Fortunately, Distill.io makes it easy to automate some of this process.
Distill.io is a mostly-free browser plugin. After installing the app, select the part of the page you want to track and set up the interval.
After that, Distill.io will automatically alert you whenever a website is updated.
This can have several OSINT applications for corporate security teams, such as gathering intelligence on competitors, monitoring a VIP’s online reputation, or tracking new SEC filings.
5. TinEye
Pictures make up the bulk of content on the web, and for that reason reverse image search remains core OSINT tradecraft, and Canada-based TinEye is still one of the most useful websites for this task. Its focus on finding where an image appears online, and when it first showed up, helps analysts test whether a photo is new, recycled from a different context, or manipulated.
The application allows users to search by image and figure out where else it may have been published online. This can be done by uploading an image to TinEye or searching by URL.
This might be needed to identify a person of interest, determine the location where a photo was taken, or debunk online mis- and disinformation circulating online.
The results of a reverse image search, provided by TinEye.com
6. Intelligence X
While Google represents a powerful tool for open-source investigators, it has limitations.
Queries are limited to what Google decides to index. As a result, investigators that become too reliant on the search engine can overlook vast swaths of the web.
Additionally, Google results tend to favor the most search engine optimized websites. These pages, however, usually have limited value during investigations.
One alternative for OSINT research: Intelligence X.
Intelligence X differentiates itself from other search engines in a handful of ways.
Firstly, it indexes content from a wider variety of sources, such as the darkweb, WhoIs records, public data leaks, and document sharing platforms. Analysts can search by email address, domain, IP, or other identifiers to uncover leaked credentials, archived documents, or mentions on dark web forums.
Additionally, Intelligence X also keeps an archive of results, similar to the Wayback Machine. But unlike other archival services, the site preserves all data sets no matter how controversial.
For corporate security, the above makes Intelligence X particularly useful for monitoring data‑leak exposure, tracking threat actor infrastructure, and corroborating intelligence gathered from other surface and dark web monitoring tools.
For example, Intelligence X has indexed footage from the 2021 Capitol Hill riots and Facebook’s data leak of 533 million profiles. The service has also archived data collected from email servers of well-known political figures like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
A screenshot of the Intelligence X search engine.
7. Exif Viewer
Pictures posted online reveal a lot more than you might think.
When you take a photo, your smartphone or digital camera records a wealth of supplementary information about the image. These details, called EXIF data, include facts such as ISO speed, aperture, camera model, focal length, and white balance.
Such EXIF data can have enormous value during an OSINT investigation. And in most cases, researchers can access this information with the right tools.
One of our favorite free OSINT websites for doing this: Exif Viewer. By extracting timestamps, GPS coordinates, device information, and edit history, analysts can confirm whether a file likely originated from a claimed source, detect tampering, or correlate multiple pieces of media to the same device or location. In corporate and physical security operations, this supports everything from validating “leaked” documents to assessing the credibility of photos tied to protest or threat activity.
For instance, individuals repurposing photographs to spread misinformation online usually don’t update an image’s EXIF data. So reviewing this information can often reveal a photo to be a fake.
Alternatively, GPS coordinates embedded in an image could reveal the location of an executive or VIP. Or it could reveal the location of a person of interest during an investigation.
A screenshot of ExifViewer.
BONUS Site: Shodan
Shodan has become a must‑bookmark OSINT site for understanding what an organization unintentionally exposes to the public internet. By continuously scanning and indexing internet‑connected devices and services, it lets investigators identify open ports, technologies in use, misconfigured systems, and even exposed industrial or IoT devices.
From a corporate and physical security lens, Shodan is especially valuable for spotting security cameras, building systems, or remote access services that may be reachable from outside the network. Analysts can use it to support attack‑surface reviews, validate vendor claims, or monitor changes in exposed infrastructure that could indicate new risk.
OSINT Websites Won’t Overcome a Poor Methodology...
...but they will help you gather intelligence faster and more effectively.
Although you could list thousands of other OSINT websites and resources, the ones mentioned above highlight the best tools that every security team should bookmark.
Try them out and see how they enhance your intelligence operations.