How to search every vintage marketplace at once: Prowl, SearchTempest, Gem and the alert apps compared

By Matthew Partsch · Owl and Twig Vintage · September 26, 2026

Nobody has built one search box that reaches every place vintage gets listed. What exists instead are four kinds of tools, each covering a different slice of the market. Here is what each one reaches, what it costs, and which one fits the way you hunt.

Why no single search reaches everything

Vintage is scattered across sites that do not share their listings with each other. eBay and Etsy listings turn up in Google all the time. Facebook Marketplace mostly wants you signed in before it shows you much. ShopGoodwill, HiBid and LiveAuctioneers run auctions with their own search boxes, and estate sale listings describe a whole house, not a single piece. Search a specific thing, say a Roseville jardiniere, and a regular search engine hands back eBay, Etsy and a wall of Pinterest. The Goodwill auction ending tonight rarely makes the list.

Every tool on this page solves part of that problem in one of two ways. Some collect listings into their own feed: you get one clean list, but only from the sites the tool can pull from. Others send your search to each site and let the site show its own results: they reach more places, but you look at more screens. Neither approach is better across the board. It depends on what you hunt.

The tools compared

Prices and features below were checked on September 26, 2026. Apps change their plans often, so confirm on the maker's site before you pay for anything.

A few smaller free sites, such as Listhopper and AllCraigslistSearch, do the classifieds version of this too. They cover the same ground as SearchTempest.

Which one fits the way you hunt

You hunt clothing, bags or shoes

Start with Gem. It was built for secondhand fashion, its decade and size filters do work nothing else here does, and it reaches independent vintage boutiques you would never think to check. It does not cover furniture, pottery or glass, and it does not reach Goodwill or Facebook Marketplace.

You want one piece in your own area before anyone else sees it

Local listings that are priced right tend to go fast, and the only way to be first is an alert. Flipify is the cheaper one to try. Swoopa is powerful but priced for people running a business on it, and its marketing leans heavily on cars. Both are built around Marketplace and Craigslist, so they will not tell you about a Goodwill auction or an estate sale.

You want classifieds from lots of cities at once

SearchTempest has done this for years and does it well: Marketplace, Craigslist and eBay on one page, sorted by distance. It stops at classifieds and eBay, so vintage-specific sites and auctions are out of its reach.

You hunt objects across thrift, auction and vintage sites

This is the gap Prowl was built for. If you collect pottery, art glass, kitchenware, toys, lamps or paper, the pieces you want are as likely to be on ShopGoodwill, HiBid, Ruby Lane or an estate sale listing as on eBay. Of the tools here, Prowl is the only one that reaches those auction and estate sale sites. You type the piece once and every search is built for you.

What Prowl does and does not do

We built Prowl because we were typing the same search into eight sites every morning. Here is what it does now, and what it does not.

• One search, 24 marketplaces. Type a piece once. Prowl builds the right search for each site and lays them out on one screen, so you can open one or all of them.
• Live listings for four sites. ShopGoodwill, eBay, Etsy and Chairish results show on the page with photos, so you can often spot the piece without opening anything.
• Facebook Marketplace by city or nationwide. Pick your metro, or run the search across every major US metro in one tap.
• Your hunt list stays on your phone. No account, no email, no sign-up. Saved hunts are stored in your own browser.
• Price Check. One tap opens eBay sold listings from the last 90 days, and a second button opens three years of Terapeak sold data for rare pieces.

What it does not do: Prowl does not send alerts. It searches when you open it, not overnight. It cannot sign in to sites for you, so Facebook Marketplace still wants you logged in. And it does not appraise anything. It puts the listings and sold prices in front of you, and reading them is still your job.

Prowl for Chrome

Prowl also comes as a Chrome extension, so a search can start from whatever page you are already on. It uses the same marketplace list and the same live listings as the web version.

Common questions

Is there one website that searches every marketplace at once?

No. Every tool covers a subset. Gem is the widest for clothing, SearchTempest for classifieds, and Prowl for objects across thrift auctions, estate sales and the big marketplaces.

What is the best free way to search Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist and eBay together?

SearchTempest, if classifieds are all you need. If you also want ShopGoodwill, auction sites and vintage marketplaces in the same search, Prowl covers all of those, also free.

Can I get alerts when a vintage piece gets listed?

Yes. Gem sends free alerts for clothing. Flipify and Swoopa send alerts for Marketplace, Craigslist and other local sites, with Flipify offering a free tier. eBay's saved searches email you new matches at no cost.

Why doesn't Google show me Goodwill auctions or Marketplace posts?

Those listings are short-lived, and many sit behind a login or inside a site's own search. A general search engine is built for pages that stay put, so for a specific piece it tends to return eBay, Etsy and Pinterest instead.

Try the sweep on a real hunt. Each button opens Prowl with the search already filled in.

Search Roseville jardiniere Search Pyrex Butterprint Search Fire-King jadeite

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