PimEyes alternatives in 2026: free and paid face search engines

Why people look for a PimEyes alternative

PimEyes popularised face search for the public and still has, by most independent accounts, the broadest coverage of the open web. It is also the engine people most often want to leave. The reasons repeat across reviews, forums and our own support inbox.

• Price. Open Plus is $29.99 a month and PROtect, the tier with takedown help, is $79.99 a month. That is a lot for someone who wants to check one photo or run a self-search every few weeks.
• The free search is a teaser. A free PimEyes search shows thumbnails of matching faces but not the pages they came from. The page is the useful part, and it sits behind the subscription.
• Opt-out needs an ID. Removing your face from PimEyes results requires a clear photo of your face and an anonymised scan of a government ID. Many people are unwilling to send either to a company they are trying to leave.
• Regulatory history. Data protection authorities in Europe have taken action against PimEyes over the processing of biometric data, and privacy groups have filed complaints. Whatever you make of that, it is a reason some users look elsewhere.
• No social media. PimEyes says it does not index social media or video platforms. Dating-profile and impersonation photos usually live on exactly those platforms.
• Fit. Some jobs want image copies, not faces. Tracing where one picture was republished is a job for TinEye or Google Lens, and both are free.

Is PimEyes free?

Partly. You can run a search without paying and see small previews of matching faces. You cannot open the source pages, set alerts or export anything without a subscription. In practice a free PimEyes search tells you whether your face appears somewhere and charges you to learn where. Several engines below show source links on their free tier. FaceSearch's first search is free without an account, the top results are visible, and every link is unlocked on any paid plan from $5 a week.

The phrase "PimEyes free" also turns up unofficial mirrors and browser extensions that promise free access. Avoid them. They either proxy your photo through a third party you know nothing about, or they are not face search at all. If a free search matters, use an engine that offers one openly.

The alternatives, ranked

Ranked by the rubric above for the most common reason people leave PimEyes: they want to find where a face appears, including their own, without a $30 monthly commitment. PimEyes itself sits at the end for reference.

• Ours1. FaceSearchFace-first engine with a free first search and the cheapest paid entry we know of: Starter is $5 a week for five normal and three deep searches with every source link unlocked. Public web only, no face database built from uploads, free removal by email. No alerts or API yet.
• 2. FaceCheck.IDBest when the photo comes from a dating app or a social profile and the quality is poor; reviewers rate it well on side profiles and blurry images. Free searches show source links. Paid use is credit packs from $19 for 150 credits that expire after 14 days, at 3 credits a search.
• 3. Lenso.aiAn image search suite with a People category, filters, alerts and an API, from $15.99 a month. Face search is only offered in selected regions, so check availability before paying.
• 4. Face Search AIThree free searches a day without an account, plans from $7.77 a month, an API from $50 a month. Despite the similar name it is a separate company from FaceSearch.
• 5. Yandex ImagesFree and often the strongest free option for finding a face, because of what it indexes. It matches images rather than faces, so it misses different photos of the same person.
• 6. Eyematch.aiA newer face-first entrant with a free preview, paid plans, and published opt-out and DMCA routes. Less documentation and a shorter track record than the engines above.
• 7. Social CatfishA people-search service rather than a face engine. Reverse image search with face matching sits alongside phone, email, name and username lookups, sold as a trial that converts to a monthly subscription. Useful when you want a report, not a list of pages.
• 8. Reversely.aiA reverse image suite with a face search, an AI-image detector and reverse video search. Pricing is $9.99 per unlocked result, which gets expensive past a couple of searches.
• 9. Google LensFree and the right first step for finding copies of an exact picture. Deliberately weak at identifying people; it will not find a different photo of the same face.
• 10. TinEyeFree, image-only, and the best tool for tracing where one picture originated and how it was edited. Zero face matching, which is exactly what some stolen-photo jobs need.
• 11. Bing Visual SearchFree, image-based, and occasionally finds copies the others miss. Not a face engine.
• 12. Search4FacesFree face search limited to VK, Odnoklassniki, TikTok and Clubhouse profiles. Relevant for Russian-speaking social networks and irrelevant elsewhere.
• 13. ProFaceFinderA small paid face search engine with a limited index. Worth a look only when the larger engines come back empty.
• PimEyes, for referenceThe incumbent. Broadest open-web coverage by most accounts, alerts, and takedown help on PROtect. $29.99 a month for Open Plus, $79.99 for PROtect, free searches without source links, and an opt-out that requires an ID scan.

Every PimEyes alternative compared

How to pick, by job

You want to find your own photos

This is the job PimEyes built its reputation on, and it is the job FaceSearch is built for. Run a self-search on a face engine, not an image engine, because the point is to find photos you have never seen. Start free here, and add a deep search when the first pass looks thin. Run the same photo through Yandex as a free second opinion.

You want to check a dating or marketplace profile

Social and dating photos are where FaceCheck.ID is strongest, and its free tier shows links. FaceSearch covers the same question on a weekly plan without expiring credits; the catfish check guide walks through it. Whichever you use, pair the search with a live video call, because a face that was never published anywhere returns nothing on every engine.

You want to trace where one photo was copied

Use TinEye first, then Google Lens and Bing. They are free and they match the image itself, including crops and edits, which is what a copyright or stolen-photo trace needs. A face engine finds other photos of you, which is a different question. The face search vs reverse image search explainer sets out the difference.

You are doing research or investigations

PimEyes and Lenso.ai sell filters, research modes and alerts aimed at this work, at the top of the price range. FaceSearch's Business plan trades those features for volume (2,500 normal credits and 50 deep credits a month) and take-down help. Whatever you use, a face match is a lead to corroborate, never a finding on its own. Our rules for journalists and researchers apply to every engine.

If you are leaving PimEyes

1. 01Cancel the subscription in your PimEyes account first. Opting out of results does not cancel billing.
2. 02Submit the opt-out. It needs a clear face photo and an anonymised ID scan; the step-by-step is in our PimEyes opt-out guide.
3. 03Remember what an opt-out does. It hides your face from PimEyes results. It does not remove the photos from the websites that host them, and it does nothing for other engines. Each engine needs its own request; ours is on Remove my photos, free, by email.
4. 04Run a self-search on the engine you move to, so you know what is visible there before anyone else does.