Who Runs the Web's Profile Pages? 3,457 Sites Analysed (2026)

When you search a username across thousands of sites, what are you actually searching? We looked at the software behind every one of the 3,457 sites in our engine's list on October 25, 2026. The answer surprised us a little, even though we built the list.

A software family, in this post, is the shared platform a site runs on, such as Mastodon or Discourse, as opposed to code the site wrote for itself.

The short version: 3,133 of the 3,457 sites (90.6%) run on one of just 11 shared open-source platforms. Mastodon alone accounts for 1,441. Only 324 sites (9.4%) run their own code, and that group holds nearly every name you would recognise. Every number here comes from our summary data (CSV).

Key findings

The list is dominated by a few open-source platforms, mostly in the fediverse.

• Eleven platforms power 90.6% of the list. Mastodon, Discourse, PeerTube and Misskey together cover 2,869 sites.
• 71% of the list is the fediverse. Mastodon, Misskey, Pleroma, PeerTube, Lemmy and Mbin servers add up to 2,470 sites.
• Video means PeerTube. Of 454 video sites, 447 are PeerTube instances.
• Only 58 sites are major platforms. The rest are 2,395 forum and community instances and 1,004 niche sites.
• Most checks go through an API. 75% of sites are checked through a public API or JSON endpoint, not by loading the profile page.

The software behind the sites

Four platforms, Mastodon, Discourse, PeerTube and Misskey, cover 2,869 of the 3,457 sites.

Below the chart are Gitea (20 sites), Mbin (3), Flarum (1) and XenForo (1). Forum software as a group (Discourse, Flarum and XenForo) covers 588 sites. MediaWiki shows up because many wikis give each user a public user page.

The 324 sites on their own software are the ones most people think of first: big social networks, code hosts, game platforms, blogs, music and shopping sites. They are under a tenth of the list by count.

Why the list looks like this

Open-source platforms are easy to cover well. Every Mastodon server answers the same way, so one tested method works on all 1,441 of them, and each server publishes its users through a public API. A custom site needs its own rule, its own testing and more upkeep when it changes its pages.

There is also simply a lot of them. Thousands of people run their own Mastodon server, Discourse forum or PeerTube channel host, and public directories list them. We sourced instances from public directories (the lemmy.world API, discover.discourse.org, instances.joinpeertube.org and a Misskey instance list), then added major sites by hand. Every site is re-checked nightly and hidden automatically if its check fails. Our testing process explains that part in detail.

Categories, tiers and domains

The remaining categories are small: music 7, art 7, business 6 and shopping 2. "Social" is so large because every fediverse server and forum lands there.

By tier, the list splits like this:

Tier	Sites	Share
Forum or community instance	2,395	69%
Niche site	1,004	29%
Major platform	58	2%

The top-level domains tell the same story. .com leads with 630 sites, but .social is second with 457, ahead of .org (350) and .net (179). After that come .io 99, .fr 89, .de 80, .space 59, .club 47, .xyz 46, .me 43 and .jp 39. A .social domain is almost always a Mastodon server.

How our engine checks them

Most sites are checked through an API: 2,599 sites (75%) are checked through a public API or JSON endpoint. The other 858 are checked by loading the profile page. 3,059 checks use a GET request and 398 use POST. To decide the result, 3,379 sites rely on the HTTP status code, 74 on the text of the page and 4 on a redirect.

APIs are the more reliable route. They give a plain yes or no, and they rarely hit the bot challenges that trip up page checks. That is one reason the fediverse part of the list is so stable.

What this means for your results

It means a big result count tells you more about small communities than about the big platforms.

A worked example

Say your handle is nightowl92 and you run it through the username search. Our engine checks it against about 3,450 sites from your request. Suppose it comes back Found on 40 sites. Given the mix above, expect most of those to be Mastodon servers, forums and PeerTube hosts, with only a few on major platforms. Open the major-platform results first, since those are the accounts people are most likely to see. Then skim the small servers for your own avatar or bio, and treat the rest as other people who picked the same name. Instagram and Threads are not checked automatically, so use our manual guides for those two.

A username search is mostly a fediverse and forum search

If you search a name across all 3,457 sites, roughly seven out of ten of the places checked are fediverse servers and about one in six is a forum. A big total tells you a lot about how common the name is in those communities and very little about the big platforms.

One handle, 1,400 different people

Each Mastodon server has its own user list. alex on one server and alex on another are separate accounts, usually owned by different people, who never had to compete for the name. So a common handle can show up on hundreds of servers without anyone copying anyone.

"Found on 800 sites" is many small communities

In our 60-username study, common names existed on 866 sites on average. This breakdown explains why: most of those hits are separate small servers and forums. Read a big number as "this name is popular", not "this person is everywhere".

Privacy

For your own footprint, a small server can be more revealing than a big one. Fewer users means a profile there is easier to tie to you. Look at the Found results on small communities first, and see our guide to checking your digital footprint.

Brand names

You can't claim a brand name on 1,400 Mastodon servers, and you don't need to. Claim it on the major platforms and on the one or two fediverse servers your audience uses. Our brand protection guide covers which accounts matter.

How we did this

• Data: the full site list in our private engine on October 25, 2026: 3,457 sites, no sampling.
• Software family: the platform tag each site carries in our engine, set from the directory it came from or when we added it by hand. Sites not on a shared platform count as own software.
• Category and tier: the tags we assign each site when we add it.
• Domains: the top-level domain of each site's profile address.
• Check method: the request type and the signal each detection rule uses. We publish only the totals here, not the rules.

Download the summary data (CSV)

Limitations

• This describes our list, not the whole web. The fediverse share is high partly because public directories made those servers easy to add.
• The list changes. Sites are hidden when nightly checks fail and new ones are added, so the totals move week to week.
• Counting by site treats a tiny server the same as a platform with millions of users. By number of accounts, the 58 major platforms would dominate.
• Some software families may be undercounted where a site hides what it runs.

FAQ

Why does my username show up on so many Mastodon servers?

Each server is its own community with its own user list. A common name gets registered separately on many of them, usually by different people.

Does a big Found count mean someone is copying me?

Rarely. Open the results and compare names, avatars and bios. On small servers, the same handle is usually a coincidence.

Are the big platforms included?

Yes, 58 major platforms are in the list. They are a small share by count, which is why we report them separately.

Can I quote these numbers?

Yes. Please link to this page as the source.

Want to see the breakdown for your own name? Run it through the username search or the name checker.