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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

NM

24 alternatives to No more writing shitty regexes to police usernames

Every product that allows usernames eventually ships the same broken solution. Someone adds a blacklist. Then a regex. Then another regex copied from StackOverflow. It works just long enough to ship, and then `admin`, `support`, city names, brand impersonation, and obvious slurs start leaking through anyway. Everyone knows it’s fragile, but it gets ignored because "it’s just usernames". I’ve had to rebuild this logic across multiple products, and I got tired of pretending it’s a solved problem. So I built *username.dev*, an API that answers a more useful question than "is this taken?" — it…

Username.dev is an API that validates usernames by classifying them into categories such as brands, public figures, places, system-reserved terms, dictionary words, premium handles, and offensive content. Rather than… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

  1. 1

    Hello, My name is Yahia, I've been working on scraping products for a long time and maintain a couple of free sites in my spare time (E.g. knifegeek.io) What prompted this is i've rebuilt scraping infra at every company I've started and finally just made it a product. Pass a URL, get clean markdown, html, images, sitemap or pass a domain, get logos, colors, socials, industry data. Goal is to offer a better service than VC funded competitors at a fraction of the cost. Stealth is included and automatic at no additional cost (normally an upcharge by alternatives). Would love your honest thoughts.

    Jul 2026 · context.dev · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Check out if your username is available

    2019 · instantusername.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3US

    Author here. This site lets you put in a username and get the users with the most similar writing style to that user. It confirmed several users who I suspected were alts and after informally asking around has identified abandoned accounts of people I know from many years ago. I made this site mostly to show how easy this is and how it can erode online privacy. If some guy with a little bit of Python, and $8 to rent a decent dedicated server for a day can make this, imagine what a company with millions of dollars and a couple dozen PhD linguists could do. Here's Paul Graham:…

    2022 · stylometry.net · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Usernames that stand out

    2023 · designtemplate.io · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    regex cheatsheet for the haters

    2020 · ihateregex.io · its alternatives →

  6. 6
    NameChk▲271

    See if your username is available on 100+ social networks

    2015 · namechk.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7
    Logo.dev▲536

    Reliable logos for any product, instantly.

    Nov 2025 · logo.dev · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    A modern regular expression playground with live matching, visual railroad diagrams, rich notes, and easy sharing.

    2020 · ihateregex.io · its alternatives →

  9. 9UC
  10. 10

    Save time, launch faster

    2018 · startupnamecheck.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11IB
  12. 12

    Find out if your startup's name is available on the web!

    2015 · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Context.dev is a web scraping API for AI agents: scrape any URL into LLM-ready Markdown, crawl entire sites, and extract structured data with one REST API.

    2024 · brand.dev · its alternatives →

  14. 14
    RegexBot▲165

    Easily convert natural language to RegEx using AI

    2024 · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Search usernames in 2000+ websites

    2024 · user-searcher.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16FA
  17. 17
    UserHunt▲145

    Hunt down accounts by username across social networks

    2021 · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    How unique is your username?

    2019 · npmjs.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    A collection of rare and inactive GitHub usernames - terror/usernames

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20SD
  21. 21NF
  22. 22
    uiNames▲101

    Generate random fake names for use in designs and mockups.

    2014 · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    Online tool to learn, build, & test Regular Expressions

    2014 · regexr.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Check username availability instantly across major platforms

    2025 · usernamescan.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →