Verifex vs OpenSanctions
Managed sanctions screening API vs open-source data you host yourself. Compare total cost, maintenance burden, and matching quality.
OpenSanctions is an open-source project that aggregates sanctions, PEP, and entity data from public sources worldwide. It provides raw data and a deduplication framework, but does not include a hosted screening API — you need to build and maintain your own matching engine, API layer, and infrastructure.
Verifex is a fully managed sanctions screening API. You send a name, you get back matches with confidence scores. No infrastructure to provision, no matching engine to build, no data pipelines to maintain. Pricing starts at $0.006 per screen with a free tier of 100 screens per month.
The tradeoff is control vs. convenience. OpenSanctions gives you full control over matching logic and data, but requires significant engineering investment and a commercial license ($3,000+/year) for production use. Verifex handles everything for you with a 99.9% uptime SLA and sub-50ms cached response times, so your team can focus on building product instead of maintaining compliance infrastructure.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Verifex | OpenSanctions |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Managed | Self-hosted |
| Commercial license | Included | $3,000+/yr |
| Maintenance | $0 | Your team |
| Matching engine | 4-stage fuzzy | Build your own |
| API included | Build your own | |
| Python SDK | ||
| PEP data | 850K+ | 700K+ |
| Response time | <50ms | Depends |
| Uptime SLA | 99.9% | Your responsibility |
| Free tier | 100/mo | Non-commercial only |
Based on publicly available data as of April 2026. Features and pricing may have changed.
Choose Verifex if you need:
- Zero infrastructure to manage or maintain
- Production-ready API with 99.9% uptime SLA
- 4-stage fuzzy matching engine included
- Sub-50ms cached response times
- Commercial license included in pricing
Choose OpenSanctions if you need:
- 700K+ PEP records from global sources
- Full control over matching logic and data
- Open-source with active community
- Free for non-commercial and journalistic use
- Broader entity and relationship data
Get started in 3 lines
curl -X POST https://api.verifex.dev/v1/screen \
-H "Authorization: Bearer vfx_sk_live_..." \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"name": "Vladimir Putin", "type": "person"}'Frequently Asked Questions
Is OpenSanctions really free for commercial use?
No. OpenSanctions is free for non-commercial and journalistic use, but commercial use requires a license starting at $3,000+ per year. Combined with the engineering cost of self-hosting, building a matching API, and maintaining data pipelines, the total cost of ownership often exceeds a managed API like Verifex.
Does Verifex use OpenSanctions data?
Verifex sources its sanctions data directly from official government sources (OFAC, UN, EU, UK, etc.) and uses Wikidata for PEP records. It does not depend on or redistribute OpenSanctions data.
Why does OpenSanctions have more PEP records than Verifex?
OpenSanctions aggregates PEP data from multiple third-party sources and national datasets. Verifex sources PEP data from Wikidata with 850K+ records covering elected officials, senior government roles, and state-owned enterprise leaders across 195 countries.
Can I use OpenSanctions data with Verifex?
Verifex is a standalone managed API with its own data pipeline. You do not need to supply or manage any external data sources. If you have specific list requirements beyond what Verifex covers, contact the team to discuss custom list integration.