Best People Search Sites: 10 Most Efficient Options

If you find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer number of them, that’s perfectly okay. Read this guide until the end to familiarize yourself with the most efficient free and paid people finder tools. Ready?

Best People Search Sites

You shall find below a list of the best people search engines, together with their unique features:

1. Whitepages: Best for professional and personal background checks
2. TruthFinder: Best for public records like police records, civil judgments, etc.
3. Intelius: Best for reverse address lookup
4. BeenVerified: Best for property and vehicle information
5. PeopleLooker: Best for unclaimed money
6. US Search: Best for personal people finding needs like finding a caller or building your network
7. Spokeo: Best for searching people by their emails
8. Instant Checkmate: Best for geolocation data of a target individual
9. ZabaSearch: Best for reverse phone search to look at caller’s background
10. That’sThem: Best for VIN and IP-based people search.

Now, let’s see what each platform has to offer:

1. Whitepages

I use Whitepages people search services regularly if I need to look up a contractor’s background. It’s a trusted source for many personal records including the following data segments:

• Individual background checks
• Mobile phone numbers
• Criminal records
• Home phone numbers
• Financial records
• Property details
• Demographics like age
• Scam ratings.

Its diversified people search functionalities come with different use cases. For example, you can search for a person of interest by full name, city, state, and ZIP code. The search results will include personal data like phone numbers, original emails, and current addresses.

Alternatively, you can use the reverse phone search functionality to find unknown callers. After verifying the caller’s identity, you can add them to the contact list. If the search result indicates a spammer or fraud, you can block the number for safety reasons.

Finally, there is the reverse address look-up tool. It enables you to find the owner of the accommodation you want to rent.

2. TruthFinder

When you need to find someone by their name, email address, basic address, full address, etc., in the US, TruthFinder should be your go-to destination. It aggregates public records from federal, state, city, county, and local databases.

Then, it processes the data automatically into an easily readable report. It creates a people search report consisting of 40+ data points including the following:

• Date of birth and age
• Full names
• Cell phone numbers
• Education history
• FAA licenses
• Instagram profiles
• Job titles
• Possible relationships
• Usernames.

TruthFinder shows legitimate data of people within the US that’s permitted by the federal and state governments. Therefore, if you understand your own responsibilities and don’t use the data to cause trouble, you’re safe.

Some people finder tools ask you to share personal and professional information to download a full report. Similarly, TruthFinder asks you to subscribe to paid plans so you can avoid disclosing your personal details.

3. Intelius

Intelius is another trusted and functional tool to look up people by their full name, address, phone, and a combination of demographic data. It’s known for its stringent privacy safety policies to protect you as a user and the third party you’re looking up. Intelius does so by disallowing any commercial uses of people search data.

For example, you can use it for domestic use cases like the ones mentioned below:

• Looking up neighbors in a new neighborhood
• Learning about lost and current family members
• Background check on the child’s friend’s parents
• Connecting with social media users
• Going on local and international vacations with buddies.

However, you can’t use Intelius for the following reasons:

• Background check on employees
• Screening tenants
• Deciding someone’s worthiness for insurance and credit lines.

Its primary people search enables you to input data like names, phones, and addresses. During the search process, the tool might ask you for additional information to speed up the search and weed out unnecessary entries. The basic search is fast and it discloses public data.

The full report is more holistic and passes through six checks for various public and proprietary records. It’s also behind a paywall so you must subscribe for short-term or long-term usage.

4. BeenVerified

BeenVerified fetches information about social media users from various public and proprietary databases. After looking at the full report of my background check data, I can decide which online profiles of mine require corrections.

The basic search requires a name, city name, possible state, and similar demographic data. You can also change the people search tool for reverse look-up using phone numbers, email addresses, or full physical addresses.

You can filter the search by a state name to speed things up. Its detailed report includes data points like contact info, social media, criminal records, vehicle ownership, business contacts, relatives, and more.

5. PeopleLooker

PeopleLooker is particularly trustworthy for finding unclaimed money on insurance accounts, bank deposits, merchant shops, and more. Besides, you can also reliably use the people finder tool for reverse email lookup, reverse phone search, online account user name search, and so on.

It also offers a People Sitemap or Directory. Here, you can find information on popular and regularly searched individuals, stacked in numerical and alphabetic order. Moreover, it complies with data privacy and consumer protection laws in the USA.

The tool may sometimes take up to 10 minutes to generate a complete background report. The content of the report is behind a paywall so you must subscribe to a short or long-term plan before you can see it.

6. US Search

This website allowed me to find people via US public record data. As I wanted to find out about my friends, the site offered me three search modes: search by name, search by address, and search by phone number.

Since I only had their names, I opted for that option. Then, the site asked me if I was looking for the info to contact someone. It also confirmed that it would offer phone numbers, addresses, locations, and email addresses as a part of the contact information.

Next, it asked me whether I wanted to gather online information like social media accounts about the person. I confirmed and entered the name of one of my friends. It only took a few seconds to fetch the results.

In the initial report, I found out about the age and some locations where he may have been staying or visiting. Also, there was a list of possible relatives that helped me confirm it was the person I was looking for.

7. Spokeo

We all get phone calls from unknown numbers. The same thing happened to me some days ago, and I used Spokeo to find out about the caller.

As I entered the phone number, the website started to search through databases. After a few minutes, it showed the state name, phone type, and carrier information along with their location on the map. For other information, such as the name of the phone user, their full address, and family members, I had to opt for a free membership trial.

Besides being a free reverse phone lookup website, Spokeo also lets you get information about people using their name, address, and email ID. To provide you with the results, it searches millions of public property records and databases.

8. Instant Checkmate

While I was evaluating different people’s search websites, I found Instant Checkmate to be quite interesting and useful. While most of the websites listed here can provide basic information, this one doesn’t limit it to people and reverse phone number searches.

It also allows you to search for criminal and traffic records, death records, inmate records, and many more from millions of data points, including federal, state, and country data sources.

As I entered the name of the person, it started to fetch information. It asked me questions about that person’s residence, age, and relative to provide me with the most accurate results.

9. ZabaSearch

Whenever I move to a new place, I always try to find out about my neighbors. For that, I usually rely on websites like ZabaSearch. It lets me enter the name of the person along with their city and state name.

Once I do, the website instantly generates the search results with basic data, like name, address, and partial phone number.

However, the website takes some time to go through the records to find out information about the person. But the good thing is, that it provides you with the criminal records (if any) and social media summary of that person.

10. That’sThem

What if I tell you that there are people search sites that also allow you to get car details and owners through VIN numbers? That’s right! That’sThem is the website I’m talking about. Here, you can also find out about people using their name, address, phone number, and email address.

Moreover, if you ever want to look out for an IP address, you can do it from the same platform. I searched for a person using his name. Then, the website took only a few seconds to fetch all the possible results.

It showed the full residential address, email address, information about the home, and phone number. Moreover, it displayed info like demographics, family, finances, mortgages, and lifestyle. I also had the option to sort or filter the search results.

How I Tested and Ranked the Best People Search Sites?

In order to list the most trusted people finder platforms, I considered the following search criteria:

• Personal Experience: I used more than 25 legitimate people finder platforms. I have tested the accessible features and functionalities from various IP addresses.
• Privacy and Safety: When using a third-party people-finding tool, you must comply with all privacy and safety laws. I have chosen platforms that respect individual privacy.
• People Search Features and Functionalities: This criteria included how elaborate the data is. For example, all the tools mentioned sift through various public databases like telephone directories, social media posts, online profiles, government records, and so on.
• User Feedback and Ratings: I also compared how users interact with the shortlisted people search engines and assigned weighted average values to choose the best 10.
• Ease of Use: All the people-finding portals mentioned here offer an easy-to-understand user interface. I have weeded out platforms with overly complicated UIs.
• Validity of People Search Data: I have performed searches for people whom I know personally to verify the accuracy of the data.
• Geographic Restrictions: I have included people look-up tools that allow you to log in to your account from anywhere in the world. The Whitepages portal is an exception though. For security reasons, it would allow only US IPs.
• Pricing: I have chosen platforms that are cost-effective and worth your investment.
• Customer Support: Onboarding, technical walkthroughs, and after-sales support are also critical when you are buying online services. I ensured that the handpicked people search tools offer you enough help and support when you need them the most.

I tested all 25 people search tools according to the above-mentioned criteria and assigned points. Then, I narrowed down the list to the 10 best people finder portals.

What Is a People Search Engine?

A people finder app is a data aggregator on personal profiles. Such websites use programmatic approaches to create an organized report on a name, address, phone number, email address, etc.

The best people search engines use two ways to create a professional background report. Firstly, they use publicly available data from social media sites, social media posts, third-party websites mentioning the target individual, government-hosted public records sites, etc.

Secondly, most of these search engines for people offer data on individuals that isn’t available publicly. They rely on large data aggregating platforms like Pipl, Signifyd, Trulioo, Jumio, etc.

Are There Any Free People Search Sites?

There are rarely any totally free people search sites. However, you can use the following tools to look for more background information on people you’re interested in.

1. Google Search

Google is the leading search engine for finding data on people, websites, businesses, products, and more. You must sift through the search engine page results to find the info you need, though.

To speed up the search, you can use the following Google Search wildcard-based approach:

"Elon Musk" site:spacex.com intext:phone number

For example, this way you can look for someone’s phone number on specific websites.

Drawbacks:

• A highly manual approach to finding people data
• Involves trial and error
• Requires high attention to detail

2. Facebook

Facebook users post a lot about their personal and professional lives on this leading social media platform. Using this data, you can easily perform a people search for background checks.

You can rely on email addresses, phone numbers, profile pictures, home addresses, office addresses, etc., to pinpoint the person. Then, you can open their Facebook profile and verify their identity from social posts, images, and more. Of course, this method won’t work if you’re blocked.

Drawbacks:

• You must use an authentic email, name, phone number, or address to find someone on Facebook
• If the profile is locked, you can’t access people’s data
• There are no reverse image searches on Facebook
• If the target individual is using a stock image as their profile picture, you may never identify them

3. LinkedIn

If you’re looking to verify the service or professional background of a job applicant, you should definitely try LinkedIn. Here, you can search for a person by filters like Posts, People, Groups, Companies, Jobs, Events, and so on. The efficiency depends on how elaborate is the target LinkedIn profile.

You can make your people search projects on LinkedIn more efficient by using wildcards like asterisks, dollar signs, etc.

Drawbacks:

• Some LinkedIn users may possess an incomplete profile.
• LinkedIn search algorithms may not generate the best people search results all the time.
• Endorsements and recommendations on LinkedIn may not always reflect the skills and proficiencies of the individual.

4. X

X (formerly Twitter) is also a free people-finder platform. It particularly helps with background checks on people before employing them or collaborating. You can sift through Tweets made by the target individual to understand their behavior, social ideology, political views, technological flair, etc.

The best way to make the most of X is by using the Advanced search feature. It enables you to filter your search criteria for a name, email, address, and phone number by Words, Accounts, Replies, Links, Engagement, and Dates.

Drawbacks:

• This people finder app doesn’t have any automation.
• It’s not a dedicated people search site.
• Search results depend on the completeness of the individual’s profile.

5. PeopleFinderFree

If you’re looking for free people search sites with automation, advanced search criteria, and in-depth background details, you can try out PeopleFinderFree. For me, it took about 3 minutes to generate an elaborate search result page. The page contained information on the person like first name, last name, age, address, and possible relatives. You can also download a full report from PeopleFinderFree.

Drawbacks:

• The search wait time is too long.
• The search data comes from Truthfinder and Spokeo.
• You must enter your own personal information to download the full report.

Summary

Whenever you need to do a background check on someone, find an old friend, or verify the identity of a new tenant, you can go to people search sites. However, you’ll find that after many clicks and a lot of wait time, the final report will ask for a hefty payment or tons of personal details.

You can avoid such inconveniences by trying out the best people search engines mentioned in this article. I’ve also rounded up some free alternatives in case you’re an expert in online research and not in the mood for a paid subscription.

FAQs

What is the best website to find someone’s address?

The best website to find someone’s address is the Whitepages portal. Its terms and conditions state that you can use its people search content if you comply with federal, local, and state laws. Still, if you need someone’s address, it is better to ask them directly. Using third-party websites might violate the target individual’s privacy rights.

What is the best way to search for a person?

The best way to search for a person depends on their profession and lifestyle. Suppose, the target individual is a social media influencer. Then, you can find them easily on Instagram, Facebook, X, etc., for free.

If the person you’re looking for isn’t active on social media or their profiles are incomplete, you can try the best sites to search for people, like Whitepages, Spokeo, and Intelius.

How can I trace someone for free?

You can trace someone for free by searching for them on Google Search, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. These are absolutely free people finder platforms but they can be too slow. You must manually look for data and create your own reports.

How can I find out where a person lives?

If you want to find out where a person lives, you can look up their home phone number in the latest telephone directory of the city or state. If the person doesn’t own a home phone but has a business, you can look for the business’s phone number on a yellow page directory or website. Alternatively, you can use the best people search sites outlined above.