Here’s a mistake that’s easy to make when you’re new to Usenet: You sign up for a primary provider, everything seems fine, then you decide to add a backup account for better completion rates. You pick a different company with a different name, pay for both subscriptions, and assume you’re covered.
Three months later, you realize both providers are pulling from the exact same backbone. You’ve been paying twice for access to the same content, with the same gaps, the same takedowns, and zero actual redundancy.
If you’ve done this, you’re not alone. The Usenet provider landscape is deliberately confusing; dozens of brand names, most of them reselling access to one of maybe seven actual backend networks. The marketing tries to make everything look independent when it usually isn’t.
Fortunately, there are two community-maintained tools that try to through this. Both are free, both get updated regularly, and both will tell you which backbone your provider actually uses so you can avoid stacking redundant accounts. Let’s look at what each one does well and when you should use it.
Whatsmyuse.net – The Straightforward Lookup Tool
If you just need a quick, no-nonsense answer to “which backbone does this provider use?” this is your site.
How It Works
The interface is dead simple. You get a dropdown menu listing every major Usenet provider and reseller (there are over 80 in the database as of late 2025). Pick your provider, and it immediately shows you:
- Which backbone they’re using
- Their stated takedown policy (DMCA or NTD)
- Any relevant notes or warnings
You can add up to 8 providers at once, which makes it easy to check whether your current setup has overlap. Select Newshosting and Newsgroup Ninja, for example, and you’ll see instantly that they’re both on the Omicron backbone, meaning they’re redundant.
There’s also a “Direct Backbone Search” mode where you can flip the lookup around. Instead of selecting providers to see their backbones, you select backbones to see which providers use them. Useful if you’re specifically trying to find a provider on, say, the Abavia backbone and want to see all your options at once.
What Makes It Useful
It is fast with no fluff. The whole page loads in under a second, you make your selections, and you get your answer.
It is easy to remember. You can easily navigate to the site.
It gets updated regularly. The last update as of this writing was November 2025. Usenet providers merge, rebrand, and change their backend relationships fairly often, and whatsmyuse.net stays current.
The Downsides
No visual representation. It’s a pure lookup tool. If you’re the kind of person who needs to see a map or diagram to understand how things connect, this won’t scratch that itch.
Limited context for newcomers. If you don’t already know what a backbone is or why it matters, the site doesn’t explain it. It assumes you understand the basics and just need the data.
The notes / warnings are a bit out of place. While I understand why they want that info out there, it just does not seem to fit with the rest of the site. The limited info they mention, also ends up being too vague and leaves more questions than it does answers. I will actually address some of those statements and warnings in future posts here.
When to Use It
Use whatsmyuse.net when you’re evaluating a specific provider or checking whether your current setup has redundancy. It’s the fastest way to get a definitive answer.
usenet.rexum.space/tree — The Visual Map
This tool takes a completely different approach. Instead of a simple lookup, it gives you an interactive tree diagram showing the entire Usenet ecosystem, backbones at the top, providers branching down, resellers underneath them.
How It Works
When you load the page, you’re looking at a large, color-coded tree. Each backbone (Omicron, Abavia, etc.) is represented as a parent node, with lines connecting down to the providers and resellers that use it. View or click on any particular node and you get details; retention days, server locations and links to their sites.
What Makes It Useful
The visual layout makes consolidation obvious. When you see the Omicron backbone node with 30+ providers hanging off it, the reality of the market becomes immediately clear. A huge chunk of the Usenet industry is owned or operated by one entity, even though those providers all have different names and branding.
You can also see relationships that aren’t obvious from provider websites. For instance, TweakNews, XLned, and Pure Usenet all trace back to Omicron ownership, even though they’re marketed as if they’re independent European providers. The tree makes that visible at a glance.
It’s great for understanding the big picture. If you’re new to Usenet and trying to wrap your head around how the industry is structured, spending ten minutes with this tree will teach you more than reading a dozen provider websites. You’ll see which backbones are actually independent, which ones are owned by larger corporations, and how much of the market is effectively controlled by Omicron.
The metadata is comprehensive. Each provider node includes retention days, whether they follow DMCA or NTD, server locations, etc.
It stays current. The maintainer pushes updates every few months as the landscape shifts. Providers merge, rebrand, or switch backends, and the tree gets updated to reflect it.
The Downsides
It can be overwhelming for quick lookups. If you just want to know “does Newshosting use the same backbone as Newsgroup Ninja?”, pulling up a full tree diagram is overkill. The visual is impressive, but it’s slower than just hitting a dropdown menu like whatsmyuse.net.
Certain info is just not needed and makes a mess of things. My first gripe is the AS#s being included. It is not really that useful in the grand scheme of things. This goes for both tools, but NTD and DMCA call outs are also not really needed these days (I will have a post about this in the future).
Omicron ownership. The map sort of undersells the operations of Omicron, going almost out of their way to reflect a separation between Omicron services that will ultimately be redundant with each other. At the moment, I will not go so far as to say their is a bias by the maintainer towards Omicron but it bears watching as time goes on.
When to Use It
Use usenet.rexum.space/tree when you want to understand how the ecosystem fits together, or when you’re trying to avoid providers that are ultimately owned by the same parent company. It’s also useful if you’re the kind of person who learns better from visuals than from lists.
Which One Should You Use?
Honestly, both. They’re complementary.
Use whatsmyuse.net for quick, specific lookups. If you’re comparing two providers or verifying that your current setup doesn’t have overlap, this is faster and more direct.
Use usenet.rexum.space/tree when you’re in research mode. If you’re trying to get a sense of which backbones are genuinely independent, which ones are owned by Omicron or other conglomerates, or just want to see how consolidated the industry actually is, the tree gives you that context in a way a dropdown menu never could.
Between the two, you’ve got everything you need to avoid the most expensive beginner mistake: paying for multiple subscriptions that all route back to the same servers.
Why These Tools Matter
The Usenet provider market is intentionally opaque. Resellers don’t advertise which backbone they use. Corporate ownership structures are buried. Marketing copy talks about “independent networks” and “exclusive infrastructure”.
And the affiliate review sites, the ones ranking providers based on commission rates rather than actual quality, aren’t going to help you figure this out. They’ll happily recommend three different “top tier” providers that all pull from the same backend, because they get paid either way.
whatsmyuse.net and usenet.rexum.space/tree exist because people in the community got tired of watching newcomers make expensive mistakes. Both tools are maintained by users who theoretically have no financial stake in which providers you pick. They just want you to have accurate information.
Use them. They’re free, they’re current, and they’ll save you from paying for redundant access that you don’t need.
