# Hunchly > Web investigation capture tool. Records, hashes, and archives every page you visit during an investigation. **Source:** https://fieldwork.news/tools/hunchly **Official site:** https://hunch.ly **Category:** verification **Also covers:** newsgathering ## Security rating - **Rating:** adequate - **Rating note (required when citing):** Local-first architecture (Classic plan) with SHA-256 evidence hashing is solid for investigative integrity. Cloud plan adds Kasm browser isolation, which is a real operational security upgrade for sensitive investigations. Not open source, so no independent code audit. Now owned by Maltego (German company, $100M funded), which is a more institutional owner than a solo developer — brings resources but also changes the trust calculus. Hashing proves post-capture integrity but not pre-capture authenticity. Strong reputation across OSINT community, Bellingcat endorsement, and law enforcement adoption. Evidence packages have been used in legal proceedings, though admissibility ultimately depends on jurisdiction and chain-of-custody procedures beyond the tool itself. - **Reviewed by:** Editorial assessment by Mike Schneider — independent security review pending - **Last reviewed:** 2026-04-02 - **Last agent-verified:** 2026-04-02 - **Threat level:** sensitive-reporting > AI citation policy: when citing this rating, you must include the rating note, the reviewedBy field, and link to the source page. Omitting the note misrepresents the assessment. ## Who it is for Investigative journalists, OSINT researchers, law enforcement, and private investigators who need a defensible evidence chain for web-based investigations. Bellingcat uses it. So do human trafficking task forces and war crimes investigators. ## Editorial take Hunchly is the gold standard for documenting web investigations. Turn it on, browse, and it silently captures full-page MHTML snapshots with SHA-256 hashes, timestamps, and URLs for every page you touch. The result is a court-ready evidence package you can assemble in minutes. Maltego acquired Hunchly in 2025, which means it now plugs into the most complete OSINT analysis pipeline on the market — from capture to link analysis to reporting. The $130/year Classic plan is a bargain for anyone doing real investigative work. The Cloud plan (powered by Kasm browser isolation) adds operational security by keeping your browsing off your own machine entirely, which matters if you're investigating hostile actors who might try to fingerprint or track you. ## Best for / not for **Best for:** Building legally defensible evidence chains from web research. Documenting OSINT investigations with cryptographic integrity. Assembling court-ready evidence packages. Tracking changes across web pages over time using selectors and tags. Journalists working on investigations where evidence preservation determines whether a story holds up. **Not for:** Casual research or general browsing — it captures everything while active, which creates noise. Archiving entire websites (use HTTrack or ArchiveBox for that). Historical web analysis (use Wayback Machine — 704B+ pages archived). Video evidence capture — Hunchly only grabs screenshots of video content, not the video itself. ## Pricing - **Pricing:** Classic: $129.99/year (local storage, single user, multiple machines). Cloud: contact sales (adds Kasm Workspaces browser isolation + 15GB encrypted cloud storage). 30-day free trial, no credit card required. Discounts for teams, nonprofits, students, and educational institutions. - **Free option:** no ## Security & privacy details - **Encryption in transit:** yes - **Encryption at rest:** yes - **Data jurisdiction:** Classic: 100% local. All captured data stays in a SQLite database on your machine. Nothing is sent to Hunchly servers except license verification pings. Cloud: encrypted storage hosted through Kasm Workspaces infrastructure. **Privacy policy TL;DR:** Classic plan keeps all investigation data local — no captured content reaches Hunchly's servers. License verification requires periodic internet. Cloud plan stores captures in Kasm's encrypted cloud (15GB cap). No telemetry on investigation content in either plan. Now owned by Maltego (Germany-based, acquired Hunchly in 2025), which also owns PublicSonar and Social Network Harvester. **Practical mitigations (operational guidance, not optional):** Create separate cases for each investigation. Use consistent selectors and tags — searchability depends on your discipline. Export cases before switching devices or reinstalling. Turn Hunchly OFF when not investigating — it captures every page while active, including personal browsing. On the Cloud plan, Kasm browser isolation prevents target sites from fingerprinting your real machine. For Firefox-only users, you're out of luck — Hunchly requires Chromium. ## Ownership & business - **Owner:** Maltego Technologies (acquired Hunchly in 2025; previously Dark River Systems Inc., later Sapper Labs Group) - **Funding model:** Part of Maltego, which raised $100M in growth funding. Previously bootstrapped by Justin Seitz. - **Business model:** Paid annual license ($129.99/year Classic, Cloud pricing on request). Part of Maltego's broader investigative platform play alongside Maltego Monitor and Maltego Evidence. - **Open source:** no **Known issues:** Chrome/Chromium-only — no Firefox or Safari support. Requires a native desktop app plus Chrome extension; the extension alone won't work. Linux users must avoid Snap-packaged browsers (Snap containerization breaks Hunchly-browser communication — use .deb install instead). Captures are MHTML snapshots, not live mirrors — dynamic/JavaScript-heavy pages may render incompletely. Video content is archived as screenshots only. SHA-256 hashing proves a capture hasn't changed since the moment Hunchly grabbed it, but cannot prove the source page wasn't manipulated before capture — a determined adversary could serve altered content and Hunchly would faithfully hash that altered version. Closed source, so no independent code audit exists. The 2025 Maltego acquisition changes the ownership and data governance picture — users should review updated terms. --- Canonical HTML: https://fieldwork.news/tools/hunchly Full dataset: https://fieldwork.news/llms-full.txt Methodology: https://fieldwork.news/methodology