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Filter the whole list by name, page or access.

Every tool on the list as a card. Type in the filter box to search names, owners and descriptions, or click a page or an access term on the right to narrow the grid. Each card opens the section of the page where the tool is listed, with its neighbours for context. The same data is in tools.json and tools.csv.

AIS-catcher
Free (open source, GPL-3.0) · jvde-github
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free

Turns an RTL-SDR or similar dongle and a small computer into an AIS receiver with a web map, and feeds AISHub or the commercial networks. Range is line of sight, a few tens…
AISHub
Share-to-get · AISHub
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Share-to-get

A pooled raw AIS feed and API that you get access to by contributing a live feed from your own receiver. Live data only.
aisstream.io
Free account · aisstream.io (community project)
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free account

A live global WebSocket feed of AIS messages, filtered by bounding box or MMSI, with GitHub sign-in. No history, three connections per account, and connections must come…
AMSA vessel traffic data
Free · Australian Maritime Safety Authority
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free

Monthly AIS shapefiles for the Australian search-and-rescue region, at roughly hourly positions. Good free history for the Indo-Pacific approaches.
BarentsWatch AIS API
Free account · BarentsWatch, Norway
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free account

Developer API over the Norwegian AIS feed with about two weeks of history. Norway only.
Danish AIS data
Free · Danish Maritime Authority
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free

Daily files of AIS for Danish waters, the approach to the Baltic. The shore network moved to the Danish Emergency Management Agency; historical files are supplied on…
Digitraffic Marine
Free (CC BY 4.0) · Fintraffic, Finland
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free

Live AIS over REST and MQTT plus Portnet port-call schedules, with commercial use allowed. Finland and the northern Baltic only; requests need a Digitraffic-User header.
Global Fishing Watch APIs
Free account (non-commercial) · Global Fishing Watch
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free account

Vessel search, events, presence grids from 2012 to about four days ago, and radar detections through a documented API with a Python client. No commercial licence is offered.
Global Fishing Watch map
Free account · Global Fishing Watch
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free account

Tracks from 2012, port visits, encounters, loitering, AIS gaps and radar detections for the whole world. Built around fishing and carrier vessels, and about three days…
Kystverket AIS
Free (NLOD open licence) · Norwegian Coastal Administration
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free

A live API for the Norwegian economic zone with no registration, plus historical files back to 2005 that include Norway’s own satellite AIS. Small fishing and leisure craft…
MarineCadastre vessel traffic
Free · NOAA and BOEM
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free

Bulk US-waters AIS from 2009 to the previous year, filtered to one position a minute, with GeoParquet files from 2024 onward. The deepest free raw AIS archive anywhere, but…
MarineRadar
Freemium · Lascade, Dubai
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Freemium

Live terrestrial and satellite AIS for more than 100,000 vessels with route playback, on the web and in mobile apps. Subscription prices are not published.
MarineTraffic
Freemium · Kpler
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Freemium

The largest crowd-sourced AIS map, with vessel pages, port calls and photos. Free accounts see about a day of track and no port calls or ownership; Kpler has owned it since…
MyShipTracking
Freemium · MyShipTracking
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Freemium

Terrestrial AIS map with a credit-based API and a free trial key. Coverage is near-shore only.
OpenCPN
Free (open source, GPL-2.0) · OpenCPN project
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free

A chart plotter that shows AIS from your receiver over real charts and keeps a local log. Useful for offline analysis of your own feed.
ShipAtlas
Freemium (from €10/month, 2026-10) · Maritime Optima, Norway
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Freemium

Satellite AIS positions, recent port calls and a sea-route calculator. The free tier is capped at ten satellite position views.
Shipinfo.net
Freemium · STELS A LLC, Russia
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Freemium

AIS map with waterway and port-congestion analytics and Northern Sea Route ice layers. Operated from Russia, so think about what you query from a case machine.
ShipXplorer
Freemium · AirNav Systems
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Freemium

AIS map fed by hobbyist receivers, from the company behind ShipSpotting. Hosting a receiver earns a premium account.
Tradlinx vessel tracking
Free · Tradlinx Inc., Seoul
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Free

Latest position, destination and identifiers for a ship by name, MMSI, IMO or call sign, with no account. Near-shore receivers only; satellite coverage is in the paid Ocean…
VesselFinder
Freemium (Basic from €9/yr, 2026-10) · VesselFinder Ltd, Bulgaria
Vessel tracking (AIS)
Freemium

Live map and vessel particulars with the cheapest paid route to longer tracks (3, 7 or 90 days by tier). Its terms forbid scraping and building datasets.
ABS Record
Free · American Bureau of Shipping
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Class records for ABS-classed ships.
Black Sea MoU
Free · Black Sea MoU
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Inspection records for the Black Sea states. The public database is developed and hosted by the Russian Federation, and may not load from every network.
ClassNK Register of Ships
Free · Nippon Kaiji Kyokai
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Class records for the Japanese society’s large fleet.
DNV Vessel Register
Free · DNV
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Class status, surveys and certificates for ships classed by DNV.
Equasis
Free account · EMSA and a consortium of maritime administrations
Vessel identity and inspections
Free account

Particulars, registered owner and managers, class, P&I cover and port state inspections for most merchant ships, and from 2026 a record of ship-to-ship transfers. The first…
IMO GISIS
Free account · International Maritime Organization
Vessel identity and inspections
Free account

The IMO’s own ship and company records: name and flag history, IMO company numbers and registered addresses. The public modules need a free IMO web account.
Indian Ocean MoU
Free · Indian Ocean MoU
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Inspection and detention data for the Indian Ocean region.
ITU MARS ship station search
Free · International Telecommunication Union
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Looks up a ship by MMSI, call sign, name or distress-beacon identity and returns the administration that registered it. The quickest check that an MMSI matches a flag.
Liberian Registry
Free · LISCR
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Public vessel and certificate lookups for the Liberian flag.
Marshall Islands Registry
Free · International Registries, Inc.
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Public information and lookups for the Marshall Islands flag.
Panama Maritime Authority
Free · Autoridad Marítima de Panamá
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

The world’s largest flag registry; its public pages hold registry notices and verification services.
Ships IO
Paid (30-day free trial, from $19.99/yr, 2026-10) · ShipVault LLC, Hawaii
Vessel identity and inspections
Paid

Crowd-sourced database of about 160,000 large ships with technical and commercial details, linked companies, yards and parts. Cheap enough for individuals, but check its…
ShipSpotting
Free account · AirNav Systems
Vessel identity and inspections
Free account

Dated, crowd-sourced ship photos, useful for confirming a hull, a livery or a name change. Browsing is free; uploading needs an account.
Superyachts.com Top 100
Free · Superyachts.com Ltd
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Rankings and owner searches for the largest yachts, useful in sanctions and asset-tracing work.
THETIS (Paris MoU)
Free · EMSA for the Paris MoU
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Inspection and detention records for ships calling in Europe, Canada and Russia’s European ports.
Tokyo MoU APCIS
Free · Tokyo MoU
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Asia-Pacific inspection records in near real time. The database is hosted in Vladivostok.
USCG PSIX
Free · US Coast Guard
Vessel identity and inspections
Free

Weekly snapshot of Coast Guard records: particulars, inspections, deficiencies and detentions for ships in US waters.
ArcNautical
Free · ArcNautical
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

Screens one IMO number against the OFAC, EU, UK and UN lists without an account, states which lists it could reach, and offers a keyless JSON endpoint. Launched in 2026;…
Combined IUU Vessel List
Free · Trygg Mat Tracking
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

Every regional fisheries organisation’s list of vessels caught fishing illegally, merged with Interpol notices, with name and flag history, alerts and a spreadsheet download.
EU Sanctions Map
Free · European Union
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

Every EU sanctions regime with the legal acts and the listed persons, entities and vessels.
FAO Global Record
Free · UN Food and Agriculture Organization
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

The Global Record of Fishing Vessels, with a unique vessel identifier and quick search by IMO, MMSI or call sign.
GLEIF LEI search
Free · Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

Legal entity identifiers with registered addresses and parent relationships for companies that have one. Good for banks, traders and larger shipowners.
ICCAT Record of Vessels
Free · International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

Authorised vessels and the Atlantic IUU list.
ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database
Free · International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

Companies, officers and addresses from the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Pandora Papers and related leaks. The usual way into offshore shipowning structures.
IOTC vessel records
Free · Indian Ocean Tuna Commission
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

Authorised and IUU vessel lists for the Indian Ocean.
KSE Institute Shadow Fleet Tracker
Free · Kyiv School of Economics Institute
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

Monthly reports on Russian seaborne oil exports and the tankers carrying them. Reports and data downloads rather than a vessel search.
OCCRP Aleph
Free account · Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free account

Searchable archive of company registries, leaks and documents. Some collections are open only to journalists.
OFAC Sanctions List Search
Free · US Treasury
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

The official search of US designations, including vessels by IMO number.
OpenCorporates
Freemium · OpenCorporates
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Freemium

The largest open database of companies and officers, with searches free on the web and the API and bulk data paid. Free API access is available to public-benefit projects on…
OpenSanctions
Freemium (free for non-commercial use) · OpenSanctions
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Freemium

Consolidated sanctions and politically exposed person data from more than a hundred sources, with vessels as entities matched to IMO numbers, flag histories and shadow-fleet…
Rendezvous
Free account (early access, 2026-10) · Rendezvous, a non-profit foundation
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free account

An open platform on the Baltic shadow fleet whose tracker scores vessels with a calibrated machine-learning model over AIS silences, encounters, flag history and port calls…
UANI tanker tracker
Free · United Against Nuclear Iran
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

A running list of several hundred tankers linked to Iranian oil. UANI is an advocacy group, so confirm against the official lists before you rely on an entry.
UK Sanctions List
Free · UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

The UK’s consolidated designations, including ships specified under the Russia regime.
UN Security Council Consolidated List
Free · United Nations Security Council
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

All individuals, entities and vessels listed by the Council’s sanctions committees.
WCPFC Record of Fishing Vessels
Free · Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission
Ownership, sanctions and shadow fleet
Free

Public search and CSV download of vessels authorised to fish in the western and central Pacific, with photos and the option to include deleted records.
Bellingcat Ship Detection Tool
Free · Ollie Ballinger for Bellingcat
Satellite imagery and detection
Free

Counts and plots ships in Sentinel-1 radar imagery for any area and date range, including ships with AIS off. Runs in Google Earth Engine; Bellingcat’s 2023 guide explains…
Capella Open Data
Free (CC BY 4.0) · Capella Space
Satellite imagery and detection
Free

Sample high-resolution radar scenes on AWS. Capella has been owned by IonQ since July 2025.
Copernicus Browser
Free account · European Space Agency for the European Commission
Satellite imagery and detection
Free account

Sentinel-1 radar and Sentinel-2 optical imagery with search, time-lapse and download. Sentinel-1 is back to a six-day revisit since the 1C and 1D satellites came into…
Copernicus Data Space
Free account · European Space Agency
Satellite imagery and detection
Free account

The APIs behind the browser (STAC, OData and processing) for pulling Sentinel data into your own tools.
EOS LandViewer
Freemium · EOS Data Analytics
Satellite imagery and detection
Freemium

Browser for Sentinel, Landsat and some commercial imagery with analysis tools; the free tier allows a small number of scenes a month.
Global Fishing Watch data portal
Free account (non-commercial) · Global Fishing Watch
Satellite imagery and detection
Free account

Downloads of radar vessel detections matched to AIS (from 2017), fishing effort and other derived datasets. The radar layer is the simplest global view of unmatched, likely…
NASA FIRMS
Free · NASA
Satellite imagery and detection
Free

Active fire and thermal anomaly detections, including flaring at offshore platforms and fires at sea.
NASA Worldview
Free · NASA
Satellite imagery and detection
Free

Same-day, low-resolution global imagery from MODIS and VIIRS, enough to see weather, smoke, ice and large slicks.
OpenAerialMap
Free (open licences) · Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
Satellite imagery and detection
Free

Openly licensed aerial and drone imagery uploaded by mappers and responders, much of it very high resolution and much of it after disasters. Patchy, but where it exists it…
SkyFi
Paid · SkyFi
Satellite imagery and detection
Paid

Marketplace for buying archive imagery or new tasking from several satellite operators by the scene, for people who need one picture rather than a contract.
Skylight
On application · Allen Institute for AI (Ai2)
Satellite imagery and detection
On application

Maritime monitoring platform that fuses AIS, radar and optical detections into alerts, free to governments, regional bodies and NGOs working on illegal fishing and maritime…
SkyTruth Cerulean
Free · SkyTruth
Satellite imagery and detection
Free

Oil slicks detected in Sentinel-1 radar, with the likely source vessel or platform suggested from AIS, through a map and an API. Vessel attribution runs a few days behind.
Umbra Open Data
Free (CC BY 4.0) · Umbra
Satellite imagery and detection
Free

Very high-resolution radar imagery of about twenty fixed sites, some of them ports, with no sign-up. A good way to learn what commercial SAR can show.
Vantor Discover
Freemium · Vantor
Satellite imagery and detection
Freemium

Browse previews of the commercial high-resolution archive for free; buying a scene is quote-based. The portal kept its Maxar address after the 2025 rename.
Vantor Open Data Program
Free (CC BY-NC 4.0) · Vantor (formerly Maxar Intelligence)
Satellite imagery and detection
Free

High-resolution before-and-after imagery released for major disasters as a catalogue on AWS. Event-driven rather than on demand, and non-commercial use only.
VIIRS Boat Detection
Free · Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines
Satellite imagery and detection
Free

Nightly detections of lit fishing boats from the VIIRS day-night band, useful for squid and other light-attracting fleets.
Container Port Performance Index
Free · World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free

Annual ranking of about 400 container ports by time in port, built from AIS, with the report and the data file for download.
Global Gas Infrastructure Tracker
Free (CC BY 4.0) · Global Energy Monitor
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free

LNG terminals and gas pipelines worldwide, with ownership and status, downloadable after a short form.
IMF PortWatch
Free · International Monetary Fund with the University of Oxford
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free

Daily port calls and trade volume estimates for about 1,800 ports and transit counts for the main chokepoints, updated weekly, with an ArcGIS API. The figures are modelled…
Marine Regions
Free · Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free

Exclusive economic zones, territorial seas and other maritime boundaries as downloadable geodata. The reference layer for “whose waters is this ship in”.
NGA World Port Index
Free · US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free

Publication 150: location, depths, facilities and services for several thousand ports, as a spreadsheet or GIS layer.
OpenInfraMap
Free · Russ Garrett
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free

Power lines, telecoms, oil and gas infrastructure drawn from OpenStreetMap, including offshore platforms and pipelines.
Port Optimizer
Free account · Port of Los Angeles with Wabtec
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free account

Volumes, forecasts and container tracking for the port of Los Angeles. One of the few ports that publishes forward-looking data.
SubTel Forum Cable Map
Free · Submarine Telecoms Forum
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free

A second cable map that also shows the cable-ship fleet and planned systems.
TeleGeography Submarine Cable Map
Free · TeleGeography
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free

The standard interactive map of submarine cables and landing stations, covering 694 systems in its 2026 edition.
UNCTAD Liner Shipping Connectivity Index
Free · UN Trade and Development
Ports, chokepoints and infrastructure
Free

Quarterly index of how well each country and port is connected to container shipping networks, inside the UNCTADstat data centre.
BIC container owner codes
Free · Bureau International des Containers
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free

The register behind the first three letters of every container number: who owns or operates the box.
Drewry World Container Index
Free (headline) · Drewry
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free

Weekly spot container rates on the main east-west routes. The headline figures are free; the detail is a subscription.
Eurostat Comext
Free · Eurostat
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free

EU trade in goods at eight-digit product detail by partner country and month.
Freightos Baltic Index
Freemium · Freightos
Cargo, containers and trade data
Freemium

Daily container spot index by lane; headline rates are free and the full series is paid.
ImportYeti
Freemium · ImportYeti
Cargo, containers and trade data
Freemium

US import bills of lading searchable by company, supplier and product, free with limits on how much detail you see. The free way into the data Panjiva and ImportGenius sell.
ITC Trade Map
Free account · International Trade Centre
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free account

Trade flows, tariffs and market indicators by product and country, with company directories for some markets.
OEC
Freemium · Datawheel
Cargo, containers and trade data
Freemium

Visual explorer of trade flows by country and product, built on Comtrade and national data. Good for a first picture; check the numbers at source.
Open Supply Hub
Free (API from $225/month, 2026-10) · Open Supply Hub
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free

An open database of production facilities with names, addresses and the brands that list them. Search and downloads are free; the API is paid.
Resource Trade Earth
Free · Chatham House
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free

Trade in natural resources (fuels, metals, agricultural goods) by country pair, with maps and downloads.
SeaRates container tracking
Freemium · DP World
Cargo, containers and trade data
Freemium

Tracks by container, bill of lading or booking number across most carriers and shows the carrying vessel’s position. Free lookups are limited without an account.
ShipsGo
Freemium · ShipsGo
Cargo, containers and trade data
Freemium

Multi-carrier container tracking with a few free lookups, then per-shipment credits and an API.
Track-Trace
Free · Webfokus, Norway
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free

Sends a container number to the right page of about 170 carriers. Nothing stored, nothing to sign up for.
UN Comtrade
Free account · UN Statistics Division
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free account

Bilateral trade by product code for almost every country, with a free API key subject to daily limits.
USA Trade Online
Free account · US Census Bureau
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free account

US imports and exports at ten-digit detail by country, district and port.
WITS
Free · World Bank
Cargo, containers and trade data
Free

Trade and tariff data with bulk download and an API, drawing on Comtrade and tariff databases.
ACLED
Free account (non-commercial) · Armed Conflict Location and Event Data
Security incidents and warnings
Free account

Coded political violence and protest events worldwide, including attacks on ports and shipping, downloadable after registration.
Eyes on Russia map
Free · Centre for Information Resilience
Security incidents and warnings
Free

Verified, geolocated incidents from the war in Ukraine, including Black Sea and port events, built with C4ADS.
GDELT
Free · The GDELT Project
Security incidents and warnings
Free

Machine-coded records of news events and mentions worldwide, downloadable in bulk or through BigQuery. Noisy, but a quick way to see what was reported about a port or sea…
IMB
Free · ICC International Maritime Bureau
Security incidents and warnings
Free

Runs the 24-hour Piracy Reporting Centre that collects attack reports worldwide and publishes quarterly statistics and an incident map.
Liveuamap
Freemium · Liveuamap
Security incidents and warnings
Freemium

Geolocated news events, including strikes on shipping and ports in the Black Sea and the Red Sea. Ad-supported, with an optional ad-free subscription.
MARA
Paid (contact us) · AB//LABS (ours)
Security incidents and warnings
Paid

Our maritime security intelligence platform: round-the-clock monitoring of security incidents with alerts, intelligence reports, daily hot spots and country and port…
Maritime Cyber Attack Database
Free · NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands
Security incidents and warnings
Free

About 300 cyber incidents against ships, ports and maritime companies since 2001, with a map filterable by victim, attacker, country and year.
Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean
Free account · EU Naval Force
Security incidents and warnings
Free account

Threat assessments, incident updates and voluntary registration for ships transiting the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean. The successor to MSCHOA, the Horn of…
MICA Center
Free · French Navy
Security incidents and warnings
Free

The Brest centre that hosts MDAT-GoG, the French and British reporting and advisory service for the Gulf of Guinea, and publishes annual and weekly maritime security reports.
NGA Maritime Safety Information
Free · US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Security incidents and warnings
Free

Navigation warnings, broadcast warnings and the Anti-Shipping Activity Messages (ASAM) database, a geocoded record of attacks and suspicious approaches going back to the…
ONI Worldwide Threat to Shipping
Free · US Office of Naval Intelligence
Security incidents and warnings
Free

Weekly summary of threats and incidents by region, compiled from the reporting centres and open sources.
Phantom Tide
Free account (Starter tier; higher tiers exist, prices not published, 2026-10) · James Sawyer
Security incidents and warnings
Free account

Analyst dashboard that ranks hotspots where vessel tracks, aircraft, navigation warnings, weather, satellite detections and GNSS interference overlap, with a notebook and…
ReCAAP ISC
Free account · ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre, Singapore
Security incidents and warnings
Free account

Incident reports, weekly and annual statistics and a searchable map for piracy and armed robbery in Asia. The dashboard needs a free account.
UKMTO
Free · UK Maritime Trade Operations (Royal Navy)
Security incidents and warnings
Free

Advisories and incident reports for the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and the Gulf, and the voluntary reporting scheme ships use there.
Baidu Maps
Free · Baidu
Maps, weather and charts
Free

Coverage and street views of Chinese ports. It uses its own shifted coordinate system, so convert before you compare positions.
Bing Maps
Free · Microsoft
Maps, weather and charts
Free

A second aerial imagery source, often from a different date than Google’s, with bird’s-eye views of many ports.
Copernicus Marine
Free account · Mercator Ocean International
Maps, weather and charts
Free account

Ocean current, wave, temperature and sea-ice datasets, for drift and feasibility analysis.
DualMaps
Free · MapChannels
Maps, weather and charts
Free

Road map, aerial view and Street View side by side for one point.
earth.nullschool
Free · Cameron Beccario
Maps, weather and charts
Free

Animated global wind, ocean current and wave fields, with a time slider.
EMODnet
Free · European Commission
Maps, weather and charts
Free

European marine data: bathymetry, human activities (cables, pipelines, wind farms, dredging) and more as map layers and downloads.
GEBCO
Free · GEBCO (IHO and IOC)
Maps, weather and charts
Free

The global bathymetry grid. Can a ship of this draught be where its AIS says it is?
GeoNames
Free · GeoNames
Maps, weather and charts
Free

Gazetteer of place names with coordinates and alternate spellings, for matching ports named in several languages.
Google Earth
Free · Google
Maps, weather and charts
Free

The desktop Pro version has a historical imagery slider, the easiest way to watch a berth, a terminal or a shipyard change over years.
KartaView
Free · Grab
Maps, weather and charts
Free

Crowd-sourced street-level photos, useful where Street View has nothing.
Navionics ChartViewer
Free · Garmin
Maps, weather and charts
Free

Worldwide nautical charts with depths and anchorages in the browser.
NOAA ENC Viewer
Free · NOAA Office of Coast Survey
Maps, weather and charts
Free

US electronic navigational charts in the browser.
OpenSeaMap
Free · OpenSeaMap
Maps, weather and charts
Free

A nautical overlay on OpenStreetMap: buoys, lights, harbours and anchorages.
OpenStreetMap
Free · OpenStreetMap Foundation
Maps, weather and charts
Free

Community-mapped berths, terminals, piers and port infrastructure with tags you can query.
PeakFinder
Free · PeakFinder GmbH
Maps, weather and charts
Free

Draws the mountain skyline from any viewpoint, which geolocates many coastal photographs.
WikiMapia
Free · WikiMapia
Maps, weather and charts
Free

Crowd-labelled places, including industrial sites, terminals and naval facilities that official maps leave blank.
Windy
Freemium · Windyty SE
Maps, weather and charts
Freemium

Wind, wave, swell and current forecasts and recent history from several models. A quick check on whether a claimed speed or route makes sense.
Yandex Maps
Free · Yandex
Maps, weather and charts
Free

The best coverage and street panoramas for Russian and Central Asian ports.
Zoom Earth
Freemium · Neave Interactive
Maps, weather and charts
Freemium

Near-real-time weather satellite imagery and storm tracks that affect shipping routes.
Altana
Enterprise quote · Altana
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Supply chain network mapping across shipment and corporate records.
Ambrey
Enterprise quote · Ambrey
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Maritime security advisories, intelligence and armed guarding.
Datalastic
Paid (from about €199/month, 2026-10) · Datalastic
Commercial platforms
Paid

A developer-oriented AIS and vessel data API, one of the cheaper paid routes to programmatic positions. The site refuses some automated and overseas requests.
Descartes Datamyne
Enterprise quote · Descartes
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Import and export records for the Americas and beyond.
Dryad Global
Enterprise quote · Dryad Global
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Maritime risk intelligence and advisories, with some free weekly commentary.
HawkEye 360
Enterprise quote · HawkEye 360
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Radio-frequency geolocation and maritime domain awareness products for governments.
ICEYE
Enterprise quote · ICEYE
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Tasked high-resolution radar imagery and dark vessel detection products.
ImportGenius
Paid · ImportGenius
Commercial platforms
Paid

US and other customs shipment records with published subscription plans.
Kharon
Enterprise quote · Kharon
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Research and data on sanctions, export controls and the networks around designated parties.
Kpler
Enterprise quote · Kpler
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Commodity flows, cargo tracking and the combined MarineTraffic, FleetMon and Spire AIS feeds, sold as a platform and as data.
Linerlytica
Paid · Linerlytica
Commercial platforms
Paid

Container shipping market analysis and port congestion tracking.
Lloyd’s List Intelligence
Enterprise quote · Lloyd’s List Intelligence (Montagu)
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Seasearcher vessel database, risk and compliance screening, casualty records and the Lloyd’s List news service.
Panjiva
Enterprise quote · S&P Global
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Bills of lading and shipment records for many countries, with company profiles and network views.
Planet
Enterprise quote · Planet Labs
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Daily optical imagery of the whole land surface and coasts, plus the Sentinel Hub APIs under the Planet Insights Platform.
Pole Star Global
Enterprise quote · Pole Star Global
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

PurpleTRAC sanctions screening and fleet monitoring, widely used by banks and traders.
Risk Intelligence
Enterprise quote · Risk Intelligence, Denmark
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

The MaRisk system of port and sea-area threat assessments.
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Enterprise quote · S&P Global
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Sea-web and the Maritime Portal (the ship database descended from Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay), satellite AIS from the former ORBCOMM business, and Panjiva trade data.
Sayari
Enterprise quote · Sayari
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Corporate ownership graph built from public records in many jurisdictions, with trade and sanctions risk screening.
Sea-Intelligence
Paid · Sea-Intelligence
Commercial platforms
Paid

Liner schedule reliability and container market research.
Sourcemap
Enterprise quote · Sourcemap
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Supplier mapping and traceability for regulatory due diligence. The free edition we once listed is gone.
Starboard Maritime Intelligence
Enterprise quote · Starboard, New Zealand
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Vessel risk and dark activity analytics aimed at governments and fisheries agencies in the Pacific and beyond.
SynMax
Enterprise quote · SynMax
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Theia, a dark vessel detection platform combining radar and optical imagery with AIS.
TankerTrackers.com
Paid (Corporate Lite $12,000/yr, 2026-10) · TankerTrackers.com
Commercial platforms
Paid

Tanker movements, floating storage and sanctioned oil flows from imagery and AIS. Retail tiers are closed to new subscribers.
Unseenlabs
Enterprise quote · Unseenlabs
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Geolocation of ships from their radio-frequency emissions, independent of AIS.
Volza
Paid · Volza
Commercial platforms
Paid

Export and import shipment data for a large set of countries, sold by subscription.
Vortexa
Enterprise quote · Vortexa
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Cargo-level tracking of oil, gas and refined products, with analytics on floating storage and shadow fleet flows.
Windward
Enterprise quote · Windward (FTV Capital)
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

AI risk scores for vessels and companies, dark activity and sanctions compliance workflows.
Worldwide AIS Network
Enterprise quote · Worldwide AIS Network ApS, Copenhagen
Commercial platforms
Enterprise quote

Live and regional AIS feeds over REST, WebSocket and raw NMEA, with a free data sample for evaluation. A smaller alternative to the Kpler and S&P feeds.
bbox finder
Free (open source) · CUGOS
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

Draw a box on a map and get its coordinates in the format an API wants, which is the quickest way to set up an aisstream.io or Copernicus filter.
Bellingcat auto-archiver
Free (open source, MIT) · Bellingcat
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

Archives web pages, posts and media from a spreadsheet of URLs, with hashes and timestamps, so that a vessel page or a port notice is preserved before it changes.
cue-kit
Free (open source, AGPL-3.0) · AB//LABS (ours)
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

Turns a video URL or file into extracted frames and a timestamped transcript that a language model can actually read, with a bundled Claude Code skill for asking questions…
equasis-cli
Free (open source, PolyForm Noncommercial) · AB//LABS (ours)
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

Looks up vessels, port state inspections, ownership history and company fleets in Equasis from the command line, an interactive shell or Python, handles batches of hundreds…
gfw-api-python-client
Free (open source, Apache-2.0) · Global Fishing Watch
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

Official Python client for the Global Fishing Watch APIs: vessel search, events and presence grids straight into pandas.
Hunchly
Paid · Hunchly
Utilities, code and our tools
Paid

Browser extension that captures and hashes every page you visit during an investigation, which is the evidence trail you want when a vessel page changes after you cite it.
Kepler.gl
Free (open source, MIT) · OpenJS Foundation
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

Browser tool that plots millions of points from a CSV or GeoParquet file with a time slider, which is how we first look at a bulk AIS download.
pyais
Free (open source, MIT) · Leon Morten Richter
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

Python library that decodes and encodes AIS NMEA sentences, the first thing you need to read a raw feed or a receiver log.
QGIS
Free (open source, GPL-2.0) · QGIS project
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

Desktop GIS for laying AIS points, EEZ boundaries, bathymetry and satellite imagery on one map. Plugins pull Copernicus and Vantor open data in directly.
Shodan
Freemium · Shodan
Utilities, code and our tools
Freemium

Search engine for internet-exposed devices, including ships’ satellite terminals and port systems. Its old AIS ship tracker is gone and AIS data is now sold only as a bulk…
SunCalc
Free · Torsten Hoffmann
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

Sun position and shadow length for any place and time, for dating or placing a photograph of a ship or a port.
VESSA dataset
Free (GPL-3.0) · Pablo Rangel and colleagues, Brazilian Navy Research Institute and UFRJ
Utilities, code and our tools
Free

More than 200,000 labelled vessel images in 25 categories for training detectors and classifiers, published on Zenodo in November 2025.
AIS datasets on Kaggle
Free account · Kaggle (Google)
Learning and reference
Free account

Practice datasets of AIS positions uploaded by users, mostly copies of public releases such as MarineCadastre and the Danish files, for learning to clean and plot tracks.
Allianz Safety and Shipping Review
Free · Allianz Commercial
Learning and reference
Free

The annual review of ship losses, casualties and risk trends, the standard open reference on what goes wrong at sea and where.
Atlas|Bear Academy
Paid (contact us) · Atlas|Bear
Learning and reference
Paid

Professional development programmes in maritime security and supply chain intelligence from Atlas|Bear, the company AB//LABS spun off from; our people teach on them.
awesome-osint
Free · jivoi and contributors
Learning and reference
Free

The largest general OSINT list, with about 1,450 entries. Its maritime section is three lines long, which is why this list exists.
Bellingcat Online Investigation Toolkit
Free · Bellingcat
Learning and reference
Free

Hundreds of tool pages with cost, requirements, limitations and ethical notes, including a maritime section updated in 2026. Our pointer for general OSINT tools.
C4ADS
Free · C4ADS
Learning and reference
Free

Reports on illicit networks, sanctions evasion and the shadow fleet, with the data-driven method laid out in each one.
Deep Dive by Rae Baker
Free · Rae Baker
Learning and reference
Free

Maritime OSINT guides from the author of Deep Dive, including a maritime patterning framework, port analysis and a Raspberry Pi AIS receiver build.
Free government nautical charts
Free · Anchorages
Learning and reference
Free

A maintained list of the national hydrographic offices that give their charts away, with links.
GIJN: Tracking Ships at Sea
Free · Global Investigative Journalism Network
Learning and reference
Free

A reporter’s guide to vessel tracking, ownership and imagery, with case examples.
ODIS Catalogue of Sources
Free · UNESCO/IOC Project Office for IODE
Learning and reference
Free

A searchable catalogue of more than 3,000 ocean data and information sources, for finding the agency that holds the dataset you need.
OSINT Framework
Free · Justin Nordine
Learning and reference
Free

A categorised tree of general OSINT tools with registration and pricing markers and a weekly link check.
Peering Beyond the Clouds
Free · Bellingcat
Learning and reference
Free

The 2023 guide to finding ships in Sentinel-1 radar imagery with the Ship Detection Tool, and the best short introduction to SAR for analysts.
Setting up an SDR AIS receiver with AIS-catcher
Free · Worldwide AIS Network ApS
Learning and reference
Free

A step-by-step guide to building your own AIS receiver from a software-defined radio dongle, written by a commercial feed provider.
Shipmap.org
Free · Kiln and the UCL Energy Institute
Learning and reference
Free

An animated map of the world’s merchant shipping over one year, built from 2012 AIS data. Old, but the best single picture of how trade moves for a classroom.
Summer School on Illicit Trade
Paid (fee published per edition) · University of Groningen
Learning and reference
Paid

The annual summer school where this list gets used and tested each year, with sessions on maritime and supply-chain OSINT.
The Organized Crime Index
Free · Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Learning and reference
Free

Country scores for criminal markets and actors, from arms and drugs to human trafficking, with the methodology published. Useful context for any illicit trade case.
UN AIS Handbook
Free · UN Committee of Experts on Big Data, AIS Task Team
Learning and reference
Free

The method handbook for cleaning and analysing AIS data for statistics, with worked examples. Most pages date from 2020 to 2023, but the fundamentals have not moved.
World Factbook Archive
Free (open source, MIT) · MilkMp, a community project not affiliated with the CIA
Learning and reference
Free

Every edition of the CIA World Factbook from 1990 to 2025 as a searchable site, a database and a free offline app, after the CIA discontinued the Factbook on 4 February…
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