The best face search engines in 2026, compared

Face search engine or image search engine?

The distinction decides which half of this list is relevant to you. A face search engine detects the face in your photo, turns it into a set of measurements and compares those with faces it has seen on public pages. It can find a different photo of the same person, taken years apart. An image search engine compares whole pictures and finds copies, crops and edits of the one you uploaded. It is excellent at tracing a stolen photo and poor at finding other photos of you.

FaceSearch, PimEyes, FaceCheck.ID, Face Search AI, Eyematch.ai, Search4Faces and ProFaceFinder are face engines. Lenso.ai and Reversely.ai are image suites with a face mode. Google Lens, TinEye, Yandex Images and Bing Visual Search are image engines and will stay that way; Google in particular has chosen not to identify people. Social Catfish is a people-search report service with image matching inside it. The longer explanation is on face search vs reverse image search.

How we ranked them

• Price of ten searches. Ten is roughly a month of casual self-checking or a short burst of dating-profile checks. The table further down works it out for each engine.
• What the free tier shows. Previews without source pages are a teaser; links are the useful part.
• Face-first or image-first. Face engines rank above image engines for the jobs this page is about. Image engines win their own section below.
• Removal. Free, fast and without demanding documents ranks higher. Every engine's route is in the matrix.
• Region. An engine that will not run face search where you live is not an option, however good it is elsewhere.
• Honesty of claims. Published limits and disclaimers rank above accuracy percentages that nobody can check.

What this ranking is not: a measured accuracy test. Our 12-scenario method is published on the methodology page and results are added there as they are run. Until then, accuracy statements below are what independent reviewers consistently report, labelled as such.

The best face search engines in 2026

• Largest index1. PimEyesBy most independent accounts the broadest coverage of the open web, with alerts and, on PROtect, takedown help. Also the most expensive: $29.99 a month for Open Plus, $79.99 for PROtect, free searches that hide source pages, and an opt-out that requires an ID scan. No social media indexing.
• Ours2. FaceSearchBest value in our reading of the market: a free first search with no account, then Starter at $5 a week for five normal and three deep searches with every link unlocked, up to Business at $50 a month with take-down help. Public web only, uploads never used to build a face database, free removal by email. No alerts, no API.
• Best for social photos3. FaceCheck.IDThe engine reviewers favour for dating-app screenshots, side profiles and blurry images, with source links on free searches and red-flag warnings. Credits at 3 a search from $19 for 150, valid 14 days; slower searches and a narrower open-web index are its stated trade-offs.
• 4. Lenso.aiAn image suite with a People category, filters, research mode, alerts and an API, from $15.99 a month. Face search is limited to selected regions.
• 5. Face Search AIThree free searches a day without an account and plans from $7.77 a month, with an API from $50 a month. A separate company from FaceSearch.
• Best free6. Yandex ImagesFree, no account, and often the strongest free way to find a face online because of the pages it indexes. Image matching, not face matching, so it misses different photos of the same person.
• 7. Eyematch.aiNewer face-first engine with a free preview, paid plans and published opt-out and DMCA routes. Less documentation than the engines above.
• 8. Social CatfishA people-search report rather than a results list: image search with face matching plus phone, email, name and username lookups, on a trial that converts to a monthly subscription. Mainly United States.
• 9. Reversely.aiReverse image suite with a face search, an AI-image detector and reverse video search. $9.99 per unlocked result adds up quickly.
• 10. Google LensFree, everywhere, and the right first step for copies of an exact picture. Deliberately weak at identifying people.
• 11. TinEyeFree and the best tool for finding where a picture originated and how it was edited. No face matching at all.
• 12. Bing Visual SearchFree, image-based, a reasonable third opinion after Google and TinEye.
• 13. Search4FacesFree face search limited to VK, Odnoklassniki, TikTok and Clubhouse. Useful for Russian-speaking networks only.
• 14. ProFaceFinderSmall paid face engine with a limited index. A last resort.

Full comparison

What ten searches cost

Best by job

Finding your own photos and getting them removed

Use a face engine, because the goal is photos you have never seen. PimEyes has the widest coverage at the highest price; FaceSearch starts free and goes wider with a deep search; Yandex is the free second opinion. Then act on what you find: the find my photos online guide covers the search and the removal guide covers what comes after.

Checking a dating profile

FaceCheck.ID for a one-off check from a poor screenshot; FaceSearch for a weekly habit without expiring credits; Social Catfish if you want a report. Always add a live video call, because a face that was never published returns nothing everywhere. Steps are in the catfish check guide.

Tracing a stolen photo

TinEye, then Google Lens, then Bing, all free. They match the image, including crops and filters, and they show where it was first published. Follow with a face engine to see what else of yours is out there.

Research, journalism and investigations

PimEyes and Lenso.ai sell the filters, research modes and alerts that this work tends to want, at the top of the price range. FaceSearch Business offers volume and take-down help instead. Whatever the tool, a face match is a lead to corroborate with other evidence, and uses such as employment, tenant, credit and insurance screening are restricted by law in the US and elsewhere; see face search for journalists and researchers and the legal guide.

Creators and models

A regular self-search on a face engine, plus TinEye for specific stolen images, catches reposts early. FaceSearch's Business plan adds help with take-down requests; PimEyes PROtect sells a similar service at $79.99 a month. The creators page sets out a weekly routine.

Removal: how to get out of each engine

• FaceSearch: email contact@facesearch.cc with a clear photo of your face; free, confirmed by email. Details on Remove my photos.
• PimEyes: opt-out form with a face photo and an anonymised ID scan. Walkthrough in the PimEyes opt-out guide.
• FaceCheck.ID: selfie-verified removal, usually instant, ID document as fallback. Walkthrough in the FaceCheck.ID opt-out guide.
• Lenso.ai, Eyematch.ai, Reversely.ai: opt-out forms and DMCA pages on their sites.
• Google, Yandex, Bing: content removal requests; these remove a result from the engine, not the page from its host.
• An opt-out hides your face from one engine's results. It does not remove the photo from the website that hosts it, and each engine needs its own request.

Free image search engines are not face search engines

Google Lens, TinEye, Yandex Images and Bing Visual Search appear on most "best face search" lists, and they do not belong there as face engines. They are free, enormous and the right place to start when you want to know where a particular picture has been published. Upload a photo of yourself and they will find reposts of that photo, not other photos of you. Yandex is the partial exception: because of what it indexes it often surfaces a person's other pictures, which is why it ranks above several paid engines on this list. Use them, and know what they are.