Username Availability Checker: one row per username and site

$1 per 1,000 checks. Platform usage included. No rental, no minimum.

Open it in Apify Console

New to Apify? [Create a free account](https://www.apify.com?fpr=ymnoit) (referral link). Runs from a free plan account return the first 10 results; any paid plan returns everything you ask for, up to your limit.

What it costs

Checks	Cost
1,000	$1.00
10,000	$10.00
100,000	$100.00

A check is one username on one site. Plus $0.001 per run. One flat price, platform usage included, so there is no separate compute or proxy bill. Checking 5 usernames on all sites in the list costs about $0.18 (175 checks plus the run).

Why use it

• A false "available" is treated as the worst answer. A site only counts when the answer matches an exact rule (listed in the table below), and every run tests each rule first with a known account and an unused name. If a site fails its own test that day, you get unknown with the reason, not a guess.
• Three clear statuses. found, available or unknown. Unknown always carries a reason: blocked, rate limited, not a valid name there, or the site failed its test.
• Public pages and public APIs only. No login, no CAPTCHA solving, no proxy. A site that blocks the check or gives an unclear answer is reported as unknown instead of being worked around.
• robots.txt respected. Each site's robots.txt is read, and an address it does not allow is not requested.

Quick start

1. Open the actor, list your usernames, press Start.
2. Or paste this input:

{ "usernames": ["octocat", "my-new-brand"], "maxItems": 100 }

3. Download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them through the API.

To check only some sites: { "usernames": ["my-new-brand"], "platforms": ["github", "gitlab", "devto"] }.

Use it from code

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/one_dollar_store~username-availability-checker/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"usernames": ["my-new-brand"], "platforms": ["github", "gitlab", "devto"]}'

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("one_dollar_store/username-availability-checker").call(
    run_input={"usernames": ["my-new-brand"], "maxItems": 100}
)
for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(row["username"], row["platformName"], row["status"])

Use it from an AI assistant

Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other assistants can call this actor through Apify's MCP server. Add it with this server address:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=one_dollar_store/username-availability-checker

Then ask, for example: "Is the username my-new-brand free on GitHub, GitLab and Dev.to?"

Switching from another username checker

Most username checkers take a list of usernames and a list of sites. Here they are usernames and platforms (site ids from the table below). The core fields are username, platform, status and profileUrl.

Input

Field	Type	Default	What it does
usernames	list of text	none	Usernames to check, one per line. A leading @ or a profile link is cut down to the username. Up to 500 usernames. Letters, digits, dot, dash and underscore only.
platforms	list of text	all sites	Site ids from the table below. Leave empty to check every site.
maxItems	number	200	Total checks (rows) for the run. Minimum 10.

Output fields

One row is one username on one site.

Field	Meaning
username	The username as you gave it.
platform, platformName, group	Site id, display name and group (developer, packages, gaming, social, creator).
status	found (the site shows an account), available (the site gave its clear not-found answer) or unknown.
profileUrl	Where the profile is, or would be.
httpStatus	The site's HTTP answer, when there was one.
reason	Only for unknown: why the answer is not certain.
checkedAt	Time of the check, UTC.

How each answer is decided

A row is found only when the site's answer matches its found rule, and available only when it matches its available rule. Anything else, including blocks, rate limits, timeouts, redirects to a login page and odd replies, is unknown. Before any username is checked on a site, the actor checks that site's rules with a known account (it must read as found) and an unused random name (it must read as available). If either fails, every row for that site in the run is unknown with the reason. The run summary lists the result of this self test for each site.

Sites and their rules

35 sites were on the list on 9 October 2026. Each one is requested at the address shown by its profile link, with a plain GET (one POST for Roblox). found and available are decided only by the rules below. Anything else is unknown.

Id	Site	Group	Found when	Available when
github	GitHub	developer	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
bitbucket	Bitbucket	developer	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
sourcehut	SourceHut	developer	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
devto	DEV Community	developer	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
hackernews	Hacker News	developer	HTTP 200 and JSON id is present	HTTP 200 and JSON the reply is empty (null)
keybase	Keybase	developer	HTTP 200 and JSON them.0.basics.username is present	HTTP 200 and JSON them.0 is empty (null)
dockerhub	Docker Hub	packages	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
cratesio	crates.io	packages	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
rubygems	RubyGems	packages	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
nuget	NuGet	packages	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
packagist	Packagist	packages	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
hexpm	Hex	packages	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
huggingface	Hugging Face	developer	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
codewars	Codewars	developer	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
codeforces	Codeforces	developer	HTTP 200 and JSON status equals OK	HTTP 400 and page says "not found" and JSON status equals FAILED
exercism	Exercism	developer	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
wordpressorg	WordPress.org	developer	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
minecraft	Minecraft (Mojang)	gaming	HTTP 200 and JSON id is present	HTTP 404
roblox	Roblox	gaming	HTTP 200 and JSON data is not empty	HTTP 200 and JSON data is an empty list
scratch	Scratch	gaming	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
steam	Steam (custom URL)	gaming	HTTP 200 and page does not say "The specified profile could not be found"	HTTP 200 and page says "The specified profile could not be found"
itchio	itch.io	gaming	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
mastodonsocial	Mastodon (mastodon.social)	social	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
bluesky	Bluesky (bsky.social)	social	HTTP 200	HTTP 400 and page says "Profile not found"
tumblr	Tumblr	social	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
openstreetmap	OpenStreetMap	social	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
duolingo	Duolingo	social	HTTP 200 and JSON users is not empty	HTTP 200 and JSON users is an empty list
soundcloud	SoundCloud	creator	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
youtube	YouTube (@handle)	creator	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
substack	Substack	creator	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
gumroad	Gumroad	creator	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
aboutme	About.me	creator	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
goodreads	Goodreads	creator	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
wattpad	Wattpad	creator	HTTP 200	HTTP 404
myanimelist	MyAnimeList	creator	HTTP 200	HTTP 404

We tried 53 sites before settling on this list. Left out on 9 October 2026: GitLab, Lichess, Chess.com, Speedrun.com, Gravatar, Wikipedia, Mixcloud, Linktree and Flickr (their robots.txt asks automated clients not to request the address), Newgrounds and Codeberg (robots.txt could not be read), PyPI, Last.fm and Bandcamp (an unused name also answers as found), Buy Me a Coffee (a known account reads as not found), Vimeo (no clear answer), Blogger (rate limiting) and Launchpad (requests time out). Big social networks such as Instagram, X, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook are not here: they need a login or block plain requests, so they cannot give a trustworthy answer.

Limits

• available means the site's own address for that username gave its clear not-found answer. It does not promise that you can register the name. Sites keep reserved words, banned names and minimum lengths that are not visible from outside. Always confirm at sign up.
• found can also be a page that exists but is not a personal profile, such as an organisation or a reserved route. The profileUrl lets you check.
• Usernames are checked as typed. A name that cannot exist on a site (too short, too long, wrong characters) is unknown with the reason not a valid username on <site>, not available.
• A site that fails its self test on the day is left out of the results and listed in the run summary under sitesLeftOut. If you name a site in platforms and it fails, you get unknown rows that say why.
• Sites rate limit. The actor spaces its requests per site, retries once, and reports unknown (rate limited, no answer) rather than guessing.
• Only public pages and public APIs, no login, no proxy, no CAPTCHA solving. Each site's robots.txt is read and followed. If a site changes its pages, its self test fails and the site drops out until its rule is updated.
• Each run first sends two test requests per site (a known account and an unused name) and reads each site's robots.txt, about 110 requests across 35 sites, before your usernames are checked. Two usernames on every site took about 40 seconds in our test.
• Up to 500 usernames per run. Every row is a charged result, so the run stops at maxItems.

FAQ

How much does it cost to check 1,000 usernames on 10 sites? 10,000 checks, so $10, plus $0.001 for each run.

Do I pay for compute or proxy on top? No. Platform usage is included in the $1 per 1,000 price. The actor needs no proxy.

Why is a site missing from my results? It failed its self test on that run (the site changed, blocked the request or was slow). The run summary lists it under sitesLeftOut with the reason.

Why not check Instagram, X or TikTok? Their pages answer the same way for real and made up names, or need a login, or block plain requests. A checker that guessed there would report false available results, which is the worst kind of mistake.

Can I check a name before I register a brand? It is a good first screen: run it across the sites and look at found and unknown. Then check the trademark register and the sign up pages of the sites you care about.

Is it legal? The actor requests public profile addresses and public APIs, as a visitor or a script would, follows each site's robots.txt and does not log in. Follow each site's terms and the law where you live, and do not use results to harass people or impersonate accounts.

Is this an official product of any of these sites? No. It is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any site on the list.

Do I need an Apify account? Yes. Actors run from an Apify account, and a free account is enough to start: it includes $5 of platform usage every month. You can sign up here. This is a referral link and it costs you nothing.

Is there a limit on the free plan? Yes. A run started from a free plan account delivers the first 10 results, then ends with a message and a link to the plans. Any paid plan returns everything you ask for, up to your own limit. The price per result is the same on every plan.

More from The One Dollar Store

Every actor here costs $1 per 1,000 results, platform usage included. See the whole store: https://apify.com/one_dollar_store

Social media

• Threads Scraper: Public Threads posts by keyword or profile.
• Instagram Profile Scraper: Followers, posts and engagement for public profiles.
• TikTok Hashtag Scraper: Videos, views and creators for any hashtag.
• Pinterest Pin Search Scraper: Public pins with images and outbound links.
• Telegram Channel Scraper: Posts, views and media from public channels.
• Xiaohongshu Scraper: RedNote notes from the public explore feeds.
• Facebook Ad Library Scraper: Meta ads by keyword or advertiser page.
• Podcast Episodes Scraper: Episodes from Apple Podcasts and RSS feeds.

Changelog

• October 2026: first release.