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Built in the open · est. 2025

A friendlier way to understand your network.

IPFerret is the modern alternative to dusty IP-lookup pages. Built privacy-first, designed like a real product, and led by a curious ferret named Finn who refuses to use third-party trackers.

Finn the IP Ferret
Median lookup
< 50ms

Edge-cached, server-rendered.

Tracking cookies
0

No third-party tags, ever.

Built-in tools
12+

IP, DNS, WHOIS, CIDR, IPv6, headers, OUI…

Privacy-first
100%

No logs. No profiling. Open API.

Our mission

Make the boring web tools feel alive again.

Every developer has at one point opened an IP-lookup page that hadn't been touched since 2008 — a 14-pt sans-serif headline, a banner ad with a fake download button, and a wall of dense text. IPFerret is the opposite of that. It's built with the same care a modern SaaS product gets: thoughtful typography, real responsive layouts, dark mode, keyboard-accessible everything.

And it's built privacy-first. No fingerprinting scripts, no analytics tags from companies you've never heard of, no selling your data to brokers. The only third-party JavaScript on the page is the Google AdSense loader that funds the site — disclosed up-front in the privacy policy, and behind an explicit consent dialog for EU/UK/Swiss visitors.

What we stand for

Four principles that shape every line of code.

Privacy first

No fingerprinting. No data brokers. Ads are disclosed and consent-gated for EU/UK/Swiss visitors.

Fast by default

Server-rendered, edge-cached, zero JS on first paint. The page should be ready before you notice it loading.

Open by design

Every UI surface is a documented JSON API. The source code is annotated and built to be self-hosted.

Honest about limits

IP geolocation is approximate. We say so loudly. We don't pretend an estimate is a fact.

How it works

Three moving parts. That's it.

IPFerret is intentionally small. Every request flows through the same three layers, no matter which tool you use.

01

Edge captures the request

Caddy reverse-proxies on TLS, parses the X-Forwarded-For chain, and hands a clean request to the Next.js app.

02

Server renders the answer

A React Server Component reads your IP, parses your user-agent, asks RIPE / RDAP / DNS-over-HTTPS for the bits we don't know, and renders HTML.

03

Browser receives a finished page

No JS-driven data fetching, no spinners, no skeleton screens. The page arrives complete. The mascot animates because mascots are entitled to vibes.

Finn the IP Ferret

Meet the mascot

This is Finn the IP Ferret.

Ferrets are fast, curious, and dedicated to a good investigation — exactly the kind of energy a network-lookup product needs. Finn lives at the top of every page, wears a small magnifying glass, and refuses to look up your DNS records unless you ask politely.

  • Curious — pokes through every header to find the interesting bit.
  • Fast — server-rendered, no waiting on third-party scripts.
  • Honest — flags "approximate" when the data is approximate.
  • Friendly — no jargon walls. Plain English first, RFCs on request.

Got an idea, a bug, or a strong opinion?

IPFerret is a one-person passion project. Real feedback shapes it more than any roadmap. Drop a line and Finn will sniff it out.