AmazingHiring aggregates more than 600 million profiles from over 50 sources, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Kaggle and LinkedIn among them, merges them into a single candidate view, and adds contact finding. It is sold by demo at roughly $3,600 to $4,800 per user per year, with no free trial. StarHunt indexes GitHub only and ranks engineers by their contributions to the repositories that define each technology, at €24.99 per month with a free tier. AmazingHiring is the broader net; StarHunt is the sharper one.
What AmazingHiring does well
Most sourcing platforms treat technical roles as one vertical among many. AmazingHiring was built around them. It pulls from the places engineers actually leave traces, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Kaggle, and combines those with professional networks so that one candidate record carries several identities. For a hard senior search, seeing that the same person answers systems questions on Stack Overflow, competes on Kaggle and maintains a library on GitHub is a real advantage.
It also solves identity resolution, which is genuinely difficult: the same engineer under three different handles across three platforms is one person in the interface, not three leads.
Identity breadth against contribution depth
This is the actual difference, and it is not about who has more data. AmazingHiring optimizes for how much you know about a person once you have found them. StarHunt optimizes for the order in which people are presented to you in the first place.
Merging fifty sources tells you a great deal about who someone is. It says much less about who is the strongest fit for this stack right now, because the sources disagree, they age at different rates, and a rich profile is not the same as recent, relevant work. StarHunt answers the narrower question with one kind of evidence: who contributes to the repositories that define this technology, in what languages, on their own projects, and how recently. Fewer dimensions, applied to the one question a sourcing shortlist has to answer.
Where the noise comes from in an aggregated index
Any index built by merging sources inherits the weaknesses of each one. A LinkedIn headline is self-declared. A Stack Overflow reputation can be years old. A GitHub account can be a fork graveyard. The merged record looks authoritative precisely because it is dense, and density is what makes a weak candidate hard to spot in a list.
Repo-first ranking narrows the input on purpose. It only counts a signal that is expensive to fake and easy to verify: code merged into a repository that other engineers depend on. That rules out real people who simply do not publish code, which is a genuine cost, and it is why the two tools suit different searches rather than one being better.
The price gap, and what it does and does not mean
AmazingHiring is reported at $3,600 to $4,800 per user per year, quoted after a demo, with no free trial. StarHunt is €24.99 per month, roughly €300 a year, with a free tier you can use without talking to anyone. That is more than a ten-to-one difference on the sticker.
It would be dishonest to present that as like-for-like. AmazingHiring's price includes multi-source coverage, identity merging, contact finding across platforms and support for a recruiting team. StarHunt is one workflow with a small surface. The useful question is not which is cheaper but whether the extra sources change your hires. If nearly all your engineering hires come from people with public code, they probably do not.
Where AmazingHiring is the better choice
When GitHub is not enough on its own: data scientists whose visible work is on Kaggle, engineers whose public footprint is Stack Overflow answers rather than repositories, and markets where local platforms matter more than GitHub. Also when several recruiters need one shared technical sourcing seat with contact finding built in, and when the purchase can go through a normal vendor process.
Where StarHunt is the better choice
When GitHub is the signal that matters for the roles you fill: backend, infrastructure, open source ecosystems, AI engineering built on public libraries. When you want the shortlist ordered by contribution evidence rather than by profile completeness. And when the budget for sourcing tools is a personal card rather than an annual line item.
What StarHunt does not do
No Stack Overflow, no Kaggle, no LinkedIn, no identity merging across platforms, and no contact enrichment beyond the public details a developer has chosen to publish. If your shortlists depend on any of those, AmazingHiring is doing work that StarHunt does not attempt.
| StarHunt | AmazingHiring | |
|---|---|---|
| Sources | GitHub | 50+ sources, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Kaggle, LinkedIn |
| Ranking is based on | Contributions to reference repositories, recency | Aggregated profile signals across sources |
| Identity merging | No | Yes, a core feature |
| Pricing model | Published, monthly | Quote after demo, annual per user |
| Reported cost | €24.99 per month | $3,600 to $4,800 per user per year |
| Free tier | Yes | No, demo only |
| Best at | Ordering engineers by real work | Knowing more about each engineer found |
Frequently asked questions
Is there a cheaper alternative to AmazingHiring?
For GitHub-based engineering sourcing, StarHunt covers that workflow at €24.99 per month against a reported $3,600 to $4,800 per user per year. It does not cover Stack Overflow, Kaggle or LinkedIn, so it is a cheaper alternative for part of the job, not all of it.
Does StarHunt search Stack Overflow or LinkedIn?
No. StarHunt indexes GitHub only. That is a deliberate limit: the ranking is built on one kind of evidence, code contributed to repositories, and mixing in self-declared profile data would weaken it.
Which is better for hiring open-source contributors?
StarHunt, because that is exactly what it indexes: it starts from the reference repositories of an ecosystem and ranks their real contributors. AmazingHiring will find many of the same people, but ordered by overall profile signals rather than by contribution to the specific ecosystem you are hiring for.
See what repo-first ranking returns for your stack
Run one search on a role you are actually hiring for, and compare the first ten results with the ten you would get from a profile search. Free, no account needed for a first look.
Try StarHunt for freeDisclosure: StarHunt publishes this page. Facts about the other tool come from its public pages and public reviews, checked in August 2026. Vendors change their pricing, so check theirs before you buy. AmazingHiring