Social Links Review
Enterprise OSINT platform with 500+ data sources and 1,700+ investigative methods for social media, dark web, and blockchain investigation
Quick Verdict
Law enforcement, intelligence agencies, corporate security teams, and professional investigation firms that need comprehensive automated OSINT across social media, messengers, and dark web sources in a single integrated platform
Pros
- + 500+ data sources including social media, messengers (Telegram, Signal), dark web, blockchain, and paste sites
- + 1,700+ search methods — one of the most comprehensive automated enrichment libraries in the market
- + Integrates directly with Maltego and i2 Analyst's Notebook — the standard platforms for visual link analysis
- + SL Crimewall: standalone platform with case management, timeline analysis, and collaboration features
- + AI-powered features: facial recognition, object detection, hate speech identification, machine translation
- + Used by S&P500 security teams and law enforcement agencies in 80+ countries
Cons
- − Enterprise pricing — no public pricing for SL Crimewall; cost is prohibitive for individuals
- − SL Professional (Maltego transforms) requires both a Maltego subscription and Social Links licensing
- − Complexity requires training — the breadth of capabilities has a meaningful learning curve
- − Some data source coverage may be restricted in certain jurisdictions
- − Not a self-service tool — requires procurement and onboarding
What Social Links Is
Social Links automates OSINT data collection across 500+ sources, including social media, messaging apps like Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp, blockchain networks, dark web forums, paste sites, and public records.
The platform offers 1,700+ search methods, available as transforms in Maltego or as a standalone tool. Law enforcement and corporate security teams use it for broad automated coverage.
Investigations often involve multiple platforms, such as Instagram, Telegram, blockchain transactions, and dark web forums. Social Links provides transforms for all these platforms, helping investigators gather data quickly.
The value of Social Links lies in its ability to work at scale.
Product Lines
SL Professional works with Maltego and i2 Analyst's Notebook. Maltego users receive Social Links data as automated transforms, enriching their visual link analysis with more data points. Simply dropping an email into Maltego triggers Social Links transforms to find matching social profiles, breach data, and dark web mentions.
SL Crimewall is a comprehensive investigation platform that offers case management, timelines, entity maps, collaboration tools, and reporting. Its AI features include facial recognition on social photos, object detection in images, and translation across 100+ languages.
SL API enables teams to access Social Links data directly, allowing them to build custom workflows or integrate into existing systems.
What 1,700+ Methods Means in Practice
Methods count refers to discrete data extraction and enrichment functions. These include data scraping, API calls, and database queries. They pull specific details from various sources. That's it.
Examples are data aggregation from social media platforms, geolocation data extraction from IP addresses, public records searches for identity verification.
- Finding associated social accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, GitHub, LinkedIn, and dozens of other platforms from a single email
- Identifying Telegram accounts, WhatsMyName results, carrier data, and breach records from a phone number
- Tracing transactions, finding exchange attribution, and identifying related addresses from a Bitcoin address
- Finding an account's channels, groups, forwarded content, and connected accounts from a Telegram username
- Running facial recognition to find matching profiles across indexed social platforms from an image
These automated enrichment paths in Social Links demonstrate the diversity of methods available.
The Maltego Integration
The text is: For Maltego users, SL Professional adds another layer. Maltego maps relationships between entities. Social Links feeds those entities with live data from over 500 sources. This combo lets you automate searches across social media, dark web, and blockchain from a single entity in Maltego. Results show up as connected nodes.
SL Professional is on the Maltego Hub. Pricing is separate from Maltego's subscription.
Here is the complete text with no changes: For Maltego users, SL Professional adds another layer. Maltego maps relationships between entities. Social Links feeds those entities with live data from over 500 sources. This combo lets you automate searches across social media, dark web, and blockchain from a single entity in Maltego. Results show up as connected nodes.
SL Professional is on the Maltego Hub. Pricing is separate from Maltego's subscription.
Who It's For
Social Links serves law enforcement, enterprises, and investigators. Their users do digital forensics, hunt down missing persons, investigate financial crime, gather threat intelligence, and assess insider threats. Compliance teams and journalists also rely on Social Links.
The pricing is steep. Small teams or solo investigators might find it out of reach. Social Links sets a benchmark for what enterprise-grade automated OSINT can do.
Reviewed April 2026. Tool available at sociallinks.io.
See Also
Social Media Investigation Essentials
When probing social media, you need tools that help you find what matters.
Device and Browser Fingerprinting
Device and browser fingerprinting gets you hardware and software details, such as motherboard model, GPU, and browser plugins. Maltego does this quickly.
Social Media Search
The obvious place to start is search. You want to know if someone's profile is private or public. Maigret searches 900+ sites, giving you a hit list. Sometimes a profile's gone; that's a lead.
People Search Engines
Pipl aggregates data from 300+ sources, providing a people search engine. Hits are raw; you vet them.
Network Analysis
Recon-ng maps out social media connections, showing who's talking to whom, friend lists, and follower networks. Spotting influencers is easy.
OSINT Risks
Remember OPSEC. Your own social media can't leak data you're searching for; double-check account settings. It's a reflex.
Next Steps
Check your own privacy settings now. Use tools that don’t alert targets. Verify every lead manually.
Essential Tools
Maigret
Maigret searches across 900+ social platforms, detects profile deletions, and is great for initial scans.
Maltego
Maltego offers device and browser fingerprinting and network mapping, and is paid but precise.
Pipl
Pipl aggregates 300+ data sources, providing basic search with good results; be prepared to vet hits.
Recon-ng
Recon-ng provides network analysis, visualizes social connections, and is customizable.
Additional Resources
Best Social Media Investigation Tools Social Media OSINT Guide
Further Reading
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Community Rating
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This review reflects testing as of 2026-04-03. OSINT tools change frequently — check the vendor's current documentation for pricing and feature updates. Report an error →