--- title: "Epieos Alternative for Investigations: DefenceCore vs Epieos" description: "Epieos returns a lookup — the platforms where an email or phone is registered. DefenceCore returns the finished investigation: a resolved identity graph, deterministic risk signals, and a sourced report with a recommended action. Which fits your casework?" canonical: https://defencecore.com/compare/defencecore-vs-epieos published: 2026-07-08 modified: 2026-07-08 --- # Epieos Alternative for Investigations: DefenceCore vs Epieos ## Quick answer **Epieos is a lookup. DefenceCore is an investigation.** Epieos answers one question extremely well: *which platforms is this email or phone number registered on?* You get a list of accounts — Google metadata, Holehe results across 100+ sites — and then the investigation is yours to run. DefenceCore starts where Epieos stops: give it the email (or phone, username, IP, or wallet) and an agent pivots across open sources the way an analyst would, resolves an identity graph with a confidence score on every link, fires deterministic risk signals, and returns a sourced report with a recommended action. Choose Epieos if you are an investigator who wants a fast, cheap registration-check as raw material for your own process. Choose DefenceCore if you need the *finished case* — connected, scored, cited, and ready to act on — in minutes, not hours. --- ## What each tool is **Epieos** (epieos.com) is one of the best-known reverse email and phone lookup tools in the OSINT community. Enter an email address and it enumerates where that address is registered — Google (name, profile photo, last-active metadata when exposed), Skype, LinkedIn, and 140+ sites and social networks via its Holehe integration — without notifying the target. It has a free tier for basic modules and paid plans for volume and full module access (public listings show roughly €19/month for 100 lookups and €49/month for 500 with API access; figures may change). It is a beloved, sharp, single-purpose instrument. **DefenceCore** ([defencecore.com](/)) is an autonomous investigation platform for fraud, trust & safety, and compliance teams. You drop in the signals from a case — email, phone, username, IP, or crypto wallet — and the agent runs the pivots a trained investigator would: a breach record surfaces an alternate email, that email reveals a reused username, the username leads to linked accounts. The output is not a list of registrations; it is a resolved identity graph with linkage confidence on every connection, deterministic risk signals, and a single recommended action, with every claim cited to its source. [See a sample report](/sample-report). The real comparison is **raw material versus finished work**. --- ## Side-by-side comparison | Dimension | DefenceCore | Epieos | |---|---|---| | **What it is** | Autonomous investigation agent | Reverse email / phone lookup | | **Input** | Email, phone, username, IP, or wallet — one or several | Email or phone number | | **What you get back** | Resolved identity graph, risk signals, recommended action, sourced report | List of platforms where the identifier is registered, plus exposed metadata | | **Pivoting** | Agent follows each finding to the next check automatically | Manual — you take each result and run the next lookup yourself | | **Evidence** | Every claim cited; linkage confidence on every connection | Registration results shown; corroboration is your job | | **Risk assessment** | Deterministic, versioned risk signals | None — interpretation is up to the analyst | | **Pricing** | From $49/month (Starter, 25 investigations) to $199/month (Pro, 150 with deep scans) | Free tier; paid plans by lookup volume (≈€19–49/month, public listings) | | **Best for** | Teams that need defensible cases at queue speed | Analysts who want fast registration-checks inside their own process | > Epieos pricing and module details reflect public listings as of mid-2026 and may change. --- ## Where DefenceCore is the better fit **1. You need the case, not the clue.** An Epieos result is the *start* of an investigation: a list of platforms that becomes an hour of manual pivoting — breach checks, username searches, cross-referencing — before you can write anything defensible. DefenceCore runs those pivots itself and returns the written case: graph, signals, recommendation, sources. For a fraud queue that never empties, that difference decides which cases get investigated at all. **2. Your case rarely starts with just an email.** Epieos takes an email or a phone. Real cases arrive as bundles — an email *and* a device IP *and* a crypto wallet from the same suspicious signup. DefenceCore accepts the bundle and resolves it into one identity picture, including on-chain wallet analysis that a registration-lookup tool has no equivalent for. **3. You have to defend the conclusion.** A list of registrations doesn't say how strongly a discovered account belongs to your subject. DefenceCore scores every link — computed from corroboration count and source reliability, not model intuition — so a reviewer, an auditor, or a regulator can see what is certain versus circumstantial. **4. The people running cases aren't OSINT specialists.** Epieos rewards analysts who already know what to do with its output. DefenceCore is built so a fraud-ops or T&S reviewer without OSINT training gets an expert-shaped investigation anyway. --- ## Where Epieos is the better fit **1. You want the cheapest possible registration-check.** If the only question is "where is this email registered?", Epieos answers it quickly and inexpensively, with a genuinely useful free tier. **2. You are the investigation engine.** Experienced OSINT practitioners who run their own methodology often want sharp single-purpose instruments, not an agent. Epieos is exactly that instrument, and it composes well with other tools (including as a Maltego transform). **3. You need Google account metadata specifically.** Epieos's Google module — name, photo, last-active when exposed — is a distinctive capability investigators reach for directly. --- ## Using both Plenty of professional workflows have room for both: Epieos as the quick, cheap check when a single registration answer is all you need, DefenceCore when the identifier is attached to a *case* — a chargeback, an abuse report, a KYC escalation — and what you actually need to produce is a documented, sourced investigation. --- ## Frequently asked questions **Is DefenceCore an alternative to Epieos?** For investigation work, yes — but they sit at different altitudes. Epieos returns raw material: the platforms where an email or phone is registered. DefenceCore returns the finished investigation: an identity graph with confidence-scored links, deterministic risk signals, and a recommended action, with every claim cited. If your output is a case file rather than a lookup result, DefenceCore is the alternative. **Does DefenceCore have a free tier like Epieos?** DefenceCore is a paid product — from $49/month for 25 investigations (Starter) to $199/month for 150 investigations with deep scans (Pro) — so you get a full sourced investigation rather than a lookup result. Epieos's free tier covers basic lookup modules, with paid plans for volume and full access. **Can DefenceCore check which sites an email is registered on?** Yes — account enumeration across platforms is one of the checks the agent runs, and the results land as nodes in the identity graph rather than as a standalone list. The difference is that DefenceCore then keeps going: breach exposure, reused usernames, linked identifiers, and risk signals, resolved into one picture. **Which is better for a fraud or trust & safety team?** DefenceCore, in most cases. Epieos is built for the individual analyst mid-process; DefenceCore is built for a queue — every flagged signup or reported account gets a sourced, reviewable case in minutes, without requiring OSINT expertise from the reviewer. **Does either tool notify the person being investigated?** No. Both work from open and commercially available sources without alerting the subject. DefenceCore additionally intent-screens signups and is built for verified security and investigation teams — it is not a people-search service, and reports may not be used for credit, employment, housing, or insurance decisions. --- ## See the difference on a real case The cleanest way to compare a lookup with an investigation is to look at what lands on your desk afterward. **[View a sample DefenceCore report](/sample-report)** — a resolved identity graph, defined risk signals, and a recommended action — then run one on a case of your own. → **[Run an investigation](/)**