SaharaIndex Trade Intelligence
Looking for a Thomasnet alternative outside North America?
Thomasnet is strong where it's focused: US and Canadian industrial suppliers, in English. The gap people usually hit is the first time they need a supplier somewhere else.
SaharaIndex is an international B2B directory built for that. A large share of our company identity data comes from official business registers — GLEIF plus the national registers of Norway, France, Estonia and Finland — so those listings trace back to a real registration. The EU sourcing hub is served in 34 languages with reciprocal hreflang, contact details need no account, and the index is rebuilt continuously from the live database rather than exported periodically.
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.
If your sourcing is domestic US, stay with Thomasnet. If it crosses a border, start here.
How the two compare
| 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 full side-by-side, including where Thomasnet is the better answer, is on the SaharaIndex vs Thomasnet page.
What changes when sourcing crosses a border
- Identity checking gets harder. You're reading a jurisdiction whose company-law conventions you don't know, which is why a national register entry beats a self-written profile.
- Language stops being cosmetic. Your counterpart searches in their own language; a page served in it is the difference between being found and not.
- You contact more suppliers, not fewer. You're looking for the few who answer, quote in your currency and ship to your port — so a per-contact gate works against you.