SaharaIndex Trade Intelligence
SaharaIndex vs Thomasnet
Thomasnet is the reference directory for North American industrial sourcing. It is very good at that job. The comparison that actually matters is what happens when your sourcing stops being North American.
The short version
| Dimension | SaharaIndex | Thomasnet |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic focus | International, register-sourced across Europe and beyond | North America |
| Languages | 34 across the EU sourcing hub | English |
| Company identity | A large share traceable to official business registers | Supplier-submitted profiles |
| Contact access | No account required | Registration-based |
| Best for | Cross-border and multi-language sourcing | US/Canada industrial procurement |
The honest framing
If you are a US manufacturer looking for a US supplier, Thomasnet is probably the right tool and we'd say so. Its category depth in North American industrial manufacturing, its RFQ workflows and its integration into how American procurement teams already work are genuine strengths, built over a very long time.
SaharaIndex is built for the case Thomasnet doesn't cover: you need a supplier in Estonia, Turkey, Egypt or Vietnam, your buyer reads Spanish, and you want to confirm the company legally exists before you send the first email.
Register-sourced company identity
A meaningful share of SaharaIndex records are built from official government business registers, not self-submitted profiles:
- GLEIF Global LEI Index — the international legal entity identifier standard
- Norwegian Brønnøysund Register Centre
- French Annuaire des Entreprises
- Estonian e-Business Register
- Finnish PRH / YTJ open data
When you're sourcing across a border, into a jurisdiction whose company-law conventions you don't know, "this entity appears in the national register" is a more useful first filter than "this company wrote a nice profile."
Language is not a nice-to-have in cross-border sourcing
Our EU sourcing hub — the country, category and product routes under /{language}/eu/ — is served in 34 languages with reciprocal hreflang and an x-default. That is not a translate widget bolted on top: each language version is server-rendered and independently indexable.
Being exact about the boundary, because it is checkable: individual company profile pages are currently served in English. The multilingual layer covers the sourcing and discovery routes buyers search through, not yet every company record.
Even with that boundary, it is the practical difference between an international directory and an English-language directory that happens to list foreign companies: your counterpart in Istanbul or Warsaw can search the hub in their own language.
No registration wall on contact details
Supplier contact information is on the supplier page. No account, no unlock step. Cross-border sourcing means contacting many suppliers to find the few who answer, quote in your currency, and ship to your port — a per-contact gate works directly against that.
Where Thomasnet wins
- North American depth. More US and Canadian industrial suppliers, in more granular categories, than we have or claim to have.
- Established procurement workflows. CAD downloads, supplier RFQ tooling and processes that US buyers already run on.
- Domestic-sourcing signals. If "Made in USA" or reshoring is your requirement, that is what Thomasnet is organised around.
Where SaharaIndex wins
- Sourcing that crosses borders
- Buyers or suppliers who don't work in English
- Wanting company identity traceable to an official register
- Reaching suppliers without an account