facesearching and Onfido both involve faces and identity, but they answer fundamentally different questions. facesearching is a reverse face search engine that takes a photo and finds where that face appears across the public web. Onfido is an enterprise identity verification platform that helps businesses confirm a customer is who they claim to be by checking a government ID against a live selfie. Choosing between them depends entirely on your goal: discovering information about someone online versus confirming a claimed identity for compliance. This detailed comparison covers features, pricing, accuracy, privacy, and user experience so you can decide. For a related enterprise comparison, see our facesearching vs Veriff comparison.
Overview of Both Services
facesearching is designed for individuals and investigators. You upload an image, and the engine searches a broad index of publicly available social media, news, blogs, and videos, returning clickable links to where the face appears. There is no ID document required, no account creation needed to preview results, and no business integration. Onfido, by contrast, is an enterprise identity verification platform. Businesses embed Onfido into their onboarding flows so a user submits a photo of a government ID and a live selfie, and Onfido verifies the document is authentic, the selfie matches the document, and the user is live. The output is a verification decision, not a list of web links. Onfido is built for KYC, compliance, and anti-fraud workflows at companies that must confirm customer identity.
Feature Comparison
- facesearching: reverse face search across social media, news, blogs, and video; clickable result links with context; match confidence scoring; consumer upload-and-search interface
- Onfido: document verification, biometric face matching between selfie and ID, liveness detection, and risk scoring delivered as an enterprise API and SDK
- Shared ground: both use deep-learning face matching, but facesearching searches outward across the web while Onfido verifies inward against a single document
facesearching discovers where a face has been across the open web. Onfido confirms who a face belongs to against a government document. One is a search engine; the other is a verification gate.
Pricing Models
facesearching uses transparent, consumer-friendly pricing: a $2 single search with no recurring commitment, a $29 Starter plan, and a $79 Pro plan. You pay for searches you actually run, with no contract or integration required. Onfido operates on an enterprise model: pricing is based on verification volume and negotiated per contract, with no pay-per-single-verification option for an individual consumer, because Onfido is sold to businesses. For individuals and small organizations, facesearching's low-cost, no-commitment model is far more accessible; for enterprises running thousands of KYC checks, Onfido's volume-based model is standard. For another pricing comparison, see our facesearching vs PimEyes analysis.
Accuracy
Accuracy is measured differently. Onfido's accuracy is about correctly verifying a claimed identity, authenticating documents, and rejecting spoofing attempts with liveness detection, a task at which enterprise systems are highly refined. facesearching's accuracy is about correctly matching a face across millions of public web images and ranking true matches highly, a web-scale problem that must separate genuine matches from coincidental resemblances. Both perform best with clear, front-facing photos and can struggle with masks, extreme angles, or very low resolution. facesearching reports match confidence so you can judge each result. For more on the search side, read our guide on how accurate face search technology is.
User Experience
The user experiences are designed for different people. facesearching is built for the person running the search: a single-page upload, results grouped by source in under a minute, and no technical knowledge required. Onfido is built for the business's customer being verified: a guided flow of photographing an ID and taking a selfie, with the business receiving the decision on the back end. An individual cannot practically use Onfido to verify a stranger, because Onfido is encountered only as a subject inside a business's onboarding. For a practical consumer workflow, see our step-by-step guide to reverse face search.
Privacy Approach
Privacy is handled differently because the data differs. facesearching processes a user-uploaded photo transiently: the image is used for the search and deleted immediately afterward, with no biometric database of submitted faces retained. Onfido, by necessity, handles more sensitive data: government ID documents, live selfies, and verification records that may be retained for compliance and audit. As an enterprise vendor serving regulated industries, Onfido operates under stringent compliance frameworks including GDPR. Both take privacy seriously, but facesearching handles a single deleted photo while Onfido manages identity documents and biometric records. The legal landscape for both is covered in our legality FAQ.
Use Cases
- Choose facesearching to: find someone by photo, verify an online date, detect catfishing, monitor your own image, perform due diligence, or investigate a suspicious profile
- Choose Onfido to: onboard customers with KYC-compliant identity verification, screen users for fraud, or meet regulatory requirements in fintech and marketplaces
- Complementary use: a business might use Onfido for customer onboarding and facesearching for open-source due diligence on high-risk clients
Which Should You Choose?
Choose facesearching if your goal is to find where a face appears online, no contract or integration required. Choose Onfido if you are a business that needs KYC-compliant identity verification against government documents. The two are not substitutes; they address different stages of trust. facesearching helps you discover and investigate; Onfido helps you confirm and comply. Knowing which you need is the key. When you are ready to search a face, try facesearching now.