ssid.ai vs macadress.com
Both resolve a MAC address to its vendor for free with no account, and both now publish an MCP server. Pick macadress.com if you want the database as a file or on your own infrastructure: free CC0 downloads in five formats and a self-hosted license from $999/year, neither of which ssid.ai offers. Pick ssid.ai when an agent needs to call the tool cold: ssid-mcp runs over stdio or hosted Streamable HTTP with no signup and no key on the free tier, while macadress.com's MCP server requires a bearer API key from a signed-up account on every call, including the free tier. ssid.ai also carries router default logins and a compliance dataset that macadress.com does not.
Last updated 2026-09-18 · macadress.com facts quoted from their pricing page and MCP server page
Side by side
| ssid.ai | macadress.com | |
|---|---|---|
| Response | JSON: vendor, kind, randomized, confidence, source | JSON: vendor, randomization confidence, IEEE 802c SLAP classification, EUI-64/IPv6 derivation (per their pricing page) |
| Randomized address | Yes — kind: randomized, vendor null | Yes, reported as a randomization confidence score rather than a boolean (not independently tested this session) |
| Vendor coverage, 2026-09-18 | 40,198 IEEE OUI registry prefixes, unit and source stated | 58,507 self-reported “vendor blocks,” 161 countries, definition of the unit not published |
| Router default logins | Yes — 467 models, manufacturer-cited | No |
| Compliance dataset | Yes — free JSON feed | No |
| MCP server | Yes — stdio or hosted HTTP, no key on either | Yes — Streamable HTTP only, bearer API key required on every call, free tier included |
| Free lookup, no account at all | Unlimited per day, 60 / min burst | Web lookup unlimited; keyless API name lookup capped at 1,000 / day |
| Free tier with an account | Not applicable, no account needed for lookup | 1,000 lookups / month, 30 req / min, no card to sign up |
| Paid tiers | $10 / mo and $100 / mo, metering router + compliance data | $19 / mo (100,000 / mo) and $79 / mo (1,000,000 / mo, 99.9% SLA) |
| Self-hosted option | No | From $999 / yr per deployment, licensed API + sync engine, own infrastructure |
| Database download | Router dataset, CSV + JSON, CC BY 4.0; no OUI dump | CSV, JSON, Cisco vendorMacs.xml, Wireshark manuf, Nmap prefixes; CC0, no signup |
| Vendor data source | IEEE MA-L, re-fetched daily at 04:00 | IEEE MA-L/MA-M/MA-S/IAB/CID, pulled daily per their pricing page |
| Public source repository | App not open source; datasets published separately (CC BY 4.0) | MCP registry lists a repo that 404s; the npm client (thin wrapper, not the lookup engine) has a public repo |
macadress.com facts are quoted from macadress.com, /pricing, /signup, /downloads and /mcp, checked 2026-09-18. Check them before relying on the numbers here.
Where macadress.com is the right answer
macadress.com is the newest of the three services this site compares against (its npm package published 2026-09-02, MCP registry entry dated 2026-08-22), operated by ApisOS FZE, and it ships two things ssid.ai does not sell at all. First, free bulk downloads of the vendor database at /downloads: CSV, JSON, Cisco's vendorMacs.xml layout, the Wireshark manuf format and the Nmap mac-prefixes format, licensed CC0 and served with no signup. Second, a self-hosted license, starting at $999 a year per deployment, for teams who don't want a lookup to leave their own network: the API and the IEEE sync engine behind it are licensed for a buyer's own infrastructure, installable as a .deb package. Its free web and keyless-API tiers are also generous: 1,000 name-only lookups a day with no signup at all, and a full JSON API key that costs nothing and needs no card.
Its client ecosystem is wider than ssid's too: the schema on its own pricing page lists official packages on npm, PyPI, Packagist, pkg.go.dev, the PowerShell Gallery and NuGet, six registries against ssid-mcp's one npm listing.
Where ssid.ai is different
The lookup itself needs no key on either service. The difference is what an AI agent has to do before it can call the MCP server, and what ssid.ai holds besides the vendor table:
# macadress.com MCP config (from their own /mcp page): a bearer key is required, not optional
{ "mcpServers": { "macadress": { "url": "https://mcp.macadress.com/mcp",
"headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer mk_your_api_key" } } } } # key must come from a signed-up account
# ssid-mcp: no account, no config beyond the install
$ npx -y ssid-mcp # stdio, works immediately
$ curl -X POST https://ssid.ai/mcp/http -d '{"...":"..."}' # or Streamable HTTP, still no key- An MCP server an agent can call the moment it is installed: no account, no API key, both stdio and hosted Streamable HTTP free. macadress.com's MCP tools all count against a metered account quota, free tier included, on every call.
- Router default logins across 467 models: gateway IP, admin username, password and reset steps, each transcribed from the manufacturer's own documentation with the source URL attached. macadress.com's product is MAC/OUI vendor lookup; it does not cover routers.
- The compliance index: 72% of 467 tracked models no longer ship a universal default password, the pattern the UK PSTI Act and the EU Cyber Resilience Act target.
How to decide
Ask what leaves your network. If keeping every lookup on your own infrastructure matters, or you want the vendor database as a file in a format your stack already reads, macadress.com sells both and ssid.ai sells neither. If what you're building is an AI agent that needs to call a tool the moment it starts, without first creating an account and wiring in a bearer key, that is what ssid-mcp is for. The two are not mutually exclusive: macadress.com for the file or the on-prem deployment, ssid.ai for the router data and the zero-friction agent tool.
FAQ
- Is ssid.ai or macadress.com better for MAC address lookup?
- For the lookup itself both are strong and both are free without an account: macadress.com's web page and its keyless GET /v1/vendor/:mac endpoint answer with no signup, and so does ssid.ai's lookup. Past the vendor name the two diverge. macadress.com sells two things ssid.ai has no equivalent for: a self-hosted license (run the API and its IEEE sync engine on your own infrastructure, from $999/year) and free bulk database downloads in CSV, JSON, Cisco vendorMacs.xml, Wireshark manuf and Nmap prefix formats, all CC0. ssid.ai's difference is router default logins, a compliance dataset, and an MCP server an agent can call cold: no account, no API key, callable the moment it's installed. macadress.com's MCP server exists too, but every call, on every plan, needs a bearer API key from a signed-up account.
- Does macadress.com require an account?
- It depends which surface you call. The web lookup at macadress.com and the plain-text GET /v1/vendor/:mac endpoint on api.macadress.com need no account at all, and the free tier of the latter is capped at 1,000 lookups a day. The full JSON API needs a free API key, auto-generated the moment you sign up with no card required, capped at 1,000 lookups a month and 30 requests a minute on the free plan. ssid.ai's MAC/OUI lookup has never required a key at any volume; a free key only raises the burst ceiling from 60 to 300 requests a minute.
- Does macadress.com have an MCP server, and can an agent call it for free?
- It has one, registered in the official MCP registry as io.github.samymassoud/macadress, published 2026-08-22 and marked active and isLatest. It is Streamable HTTP only, at https://mcp.macadress.com/mcp, stateless with no session to manage, and its own docs state every one of its four tools (lookup_mac, batch_lookup_mac, search_vendors, get_vendor_block) requires an Authorization: Bearer header carrying an API key from a macadress.com account, and every call counts against that account's plan quota, free tier included. There is no stdio option and no way to call it without first creating an account. ssid-mcp installs with npx -y ssid-mcp, runs over stdio or, for agents that connect to a URL instead of spawning a process, over Streamable HTTP at /mcp/http, and neither transport needs a signup or a key on the free tier.
- Can I download the vendor database from macadress.com?
- Yes, and it doesn't need a signup either: /downloads serves the whole registry as CSV, JSON, Cisco vendorMacs.xml, the Wireshark manuf format and the Nmap mac-prefixes format, rebuilt on a schedule (the page read a rebuild timestamp of Sep 17, 2026 18:00 UTC and 58,498 blocks when checked on 2026-09-18) and licensed CC0. ssid.ai does not publish an OUI vendor dump; the IEEE already publishes that registry for free at standards-oui.ieee.org and ssid.ai ingests it daily rather than republishing a copy. What ssid.ai does publish as a download is the router default-password dataset, CSV and JSON, CC BY 4.0, which macadress.com has no equivalent for.
- Does macadress.com offer a self-hosted option?
- Yes, and this is the clearest gap on this page: a licensed build of the API and the IEEE sync engine for a buyer's own infrastructure, installable via a .deb package, so every lookup stays inside the buyer's network with no per-query billing and no rate limit beyond the hardware it runs on. Their pricing page lists it starting at $999/year per deployment, aimed at network access control, IoT fleet management and MDM vendors. ssid.ai is hosted only; there is no build of it a customer can run on their own servers.
- Which resolves more MAC prefixes, ssid.ai or macadress.com?
- On 2026-09-18 macadress.com's homepage counter read 58,507 "vendor blocks" across 161 countries, described elsewhere on the site as a daily pull of IEEE's MA-L, MA-M, MA-S, IAB and CID registries. The site does not publish how "vendor block" is defined against those five registries, so this number should not be read as directly comparable to an IEEE prefix count. ssid.ai tracks its OUI registry count live (see /llms.txt for the current figure) and separately publishes a dated change history of that registry back to 2016, tracking renames, withdrawals and reassignments the IEEE's own current-state-only registry does not keep.