What is osint-framework?

OSINT stands for Open-Source Intelligence, which is the practice of gathering information from publicly available sources. This repository is a JavaScript project that powers a website at osintframework.com. The site organizes hundreds of free tools and resources into categories so that researchers, investigators, and security professionals can find the right tool for a given task without having to search across dozens of separate websites. The project began with an information security focus, but has since expanded to include resources from other fields. Every tool in the framework is available for free public use, at least in part. Some require registration to unlock additional data, and a few have paid tiers for more coverage, but the framework explicitly focuses on tools where you can get useful results at no cost. Each tool entry in the framework's data file can carry structured metadata beyond a name and a link. Fields include a description, a pricing label (free, freemium, or paid), what the tool accepts as input, what it returns as output, and an operational security tag that marks whether the tool works passively or actively. Passive tools query existing databases without alerting the subject, active tools make direct contact that the target might detect. This distinction matters in professional contexts where being noticed would compromise an investigation. Four letter markers appear next to tool names to set expectations before you click. T means the tool must be installed and run locally. D means it uses a Google search technique. R means registration is required. M means you need to manually edit the URL to include your search term. Contributions are welcome via pull requests to the arf.json data file. New tools must be publicly and freely accessible. The README includes a JSON template showing all available metadata fields for a new entry.