WhoisScope is an open-source WHOIS lookup platform built with Laravel and Vue.js.
Use it as a REST API, a full-stack web app, or both — with caching, rate limiting, bulk queries, and a multilingual UI.

Quick Start · Features · API · Configuration · Architecture · License

WhoisScope lets you look up domain registration data through a clean web interface or a versioned JSON API. It parses raw WHOIS responses, detects whether a domain is registered, available, or unknown, and returns structured fields such as registrar, creation date, expiry date, and status codes.

The project follows Domain-Driven Design (DDD) so business rules stay independent from Laravel, the WHOIS library, and the Vue frontend.

git clone https://github.com/your-org/whois-api.git
cd whois-api

composer install
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate

npm install
npm run build

Option A — Full stack (recommended for first run)

# Terminal 1
php artisan serve

# Terminal 2
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:8000

Option B — API only

php artisan serve

The API works without building the frontend. Endpoints are available under /api/v1/whois/*.

Option C — One command (dev)

composer dev

Runs the PHP server, queue worker, logs, and Vite dev server together.

The UI includes two tabs:

1. Domain Whois — single domain lookup with summary/full format
2. Bulk Whois — paste up to 50 domains (one per line or comma-separated), view accordion results, export CSV

Supported interface languages:

Base URL: http://localhost:8000/api/v1/whois

summary — essential fields:

domain, registration_status, registrar, created_at, expires_at, states

full — all parsed fields plus raw WHOIS text:

whois_server, owner, updated_at, name_servers, dnssec, raw, …

curl -s "http://localhost:8000/api/v1/whois/google.com?format=summary" | jq

{
  "data": {
    "domain": "google.com",
    "registration_status": "registered",
    "registrar": "MarkMonitor Inc.",
    "created_at": "1997-09-15T04:00:00+00:00",
    "expires_at": "2028-09-14T04:00:00+00:00",
    "states": ["client delete prohibited", "client transfer prohibited"]
  }
}

curl -s -X POST "http://localhost:8000/api/v1/whois/bulk" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "domains": ["google.com", "this-domain-is-free-xyz123.com"],
    "format": "summary"
  }' | jq

{
  "format": "summary",
  "results": [
    {
      "domain": "google.com",
      "status": "registered",
      "data": { "domain": "google.com", "registration_status": "registered", "...": "..." }
    },
    {
      "domain": "this-domain-is-free-xyz123.com",
      "status": "available",
      "data": { "domain": "this-domain-is-free-xyz123.com", "registration_status": "available", "...": "..." }
    }
  ]
}

Errors return JSON with message and code:

All WHOIS-related settings live in .env and config/whois.php.

# Timeouts (seconds)
WHOIS_TIMEOUT=8
WHOIS_CONNECT_TIMEOUT=3

# Bulk
WHOIS_BULK_LIMIT=50
WHOIS_BULK_CONCURRENCY=5
WHOIS_BULK_MAX_EXECUTION=300

# Cache
WHOIS_CACHE_ENABLED=true
WHOIS_CACHE_TTL=3600

# Rate limits (requests per minute, per IP)
WHOIS_RATE_LIMIT=60
WHOIS_BULK_RATE_LIMIT=10

# Laravel cache driver — use redis in production for best performance
CACHE_STORE=database

Tip: For production, set CACHE_STORE=redis and keep WHOIS_CACHE_ENABLED=true. Cached lookups typically respond in ~1 ms.

Custom WHOIS servers for specific TLDs can be added in config/whois.php under custom_servers.

WhoisScope uses a layered DDD structure:

flowchart TB
    subgraph Presentation
        UI[Vue 3 Web UI]
        API[Laravel API Controllers]
    end

    subgraph Application
        UC1[LookupWhoisUseCase]
        UC2[BulkLookupWhoisUseCase]
    end

    subgraph Domain
        ENT[WhoisRecord]
        VO[Value Objects]
        REPO_IF[WhoisRepositoryInterface]
    end

    subgraph Infrastructure
        CACHE[CachedWhoisRepository]
        PHP[PhpWhoisRepository]
        LIB[io-developer/php-whois]
    end

    UI --> API
    API --> UC1 & UC2
    UC1 & UC2 --> REPO_IF
    REPO_IF --> CACHE
    CACHE --> PHP
    PHP --> LIB
    PHP --> ENT

app/
├── Domain/Whois/              # Entities, value objects, domain services, exceptions
├── Application/Whois/         # Use cases, DTOs, application services
├── Infrastructure/Whois/      # php-whois adapter, cache decorator, socket loader
├── Http/                      # Controllers, form requests, API resources
└── Providers/                 # DI bindings, rate limiters

resources/js/                  # Vue 3 SPA (router, i18n, components)
routes/
├── api.php                    # /api/v1/whois/*
└── web.php                    # SPA catch-all

sequenceDiagram
    participant Client
    participant API as WhoisController
    participant UC as LookupWhoisUseCase
    participant Cache as CachedWhoisRepository
    participant WHOIS as PhpWhoisRepository
    participant Server as WHOIS Server :43

    Client->>API: GET /api/v1/whois/example.com
    API->>UC: execute(domain)
    UC->>Cache: lookup(domain)
    alt cache hit
        Cache-->>UC: WhoisRecord
    else cache miss
        Cache->>WHOIS: lookup(domain)
        WHOIS->>Server: TCP WHOIS query
        Server-->>WHOIS: raw text
        WHOIS-->>Cache: WhoisRecord
        Cache-->>UC: WhoisRecord
    end
    UC-->>API: WhoisRecord
    API-->>Client: JSON response

php artisan test

The test suite covers API responses, caching, rate limiting, and registration status detection.

Contributions are welcome. Please open an issue or pull request. By contributing, you agree that your code will be released under the MIT License.

WhoisScope is open source software licensed under the MIT License.

You may use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and sell copies of the software — for personal or commercial projects — as long as the license notice is included.

_{Built with Laravel & Vue · MIT Licensed}