GEDmatch Alternatives: Where Your DNA Can Still Go in 2026

Most lists of GEDmatch alternatives were written when there were more places to send a DNA file. Two of the usual names have since closed the door: MyHeritage stopped accepting uploads in 2025, and Geneanet shut its DNA service down entirely at the end of 2023. A list that still recommends them will cost you an afternoon.

What follows is what actually accepts a raw DNA file as of October 2026, what you get for free at each, and the one setting that differs most between them.

The short answer. If you want more DNA matches without buying another test, upload your raw data to FamilyTreeDNA and Living DNA, both of which are free and include matching. Keep your GEDmatch kit too, because GEDmatch is the only one of these that pools testers from every company in one place. MyHeritage, Ancestry and 23andMe no longer accept uploads, so reaching their customers means buying their kit. If you care how police can use your DNA, compare the law enforcement settings before uploading anywhere, because they work differently at each site.

Why people look past GEDmatch

GEDmatch is a free site where people upload raw DNA files from any testing company, so an AncestryDNA tester can match a 23andMe tester. It is operated by Verogen, a subsidiary of Qiagen N.V. Free accounts get match lists and segment comparisons; a Tier 1 subscription, which GEDmatch's own guide put at $10 a month in February 2026, adds advanced filtering, sorting and visualisation.

People go looking for alternatives for three reasons. The interface is built for people who already understand segment data, and it is hard going for a beginner. GEDmatch is also deliberately used by law enforcement, which some testers are not comfortable with. And its match list draws only on people who chose to upload there, so a cousin who tested at Ancestry and never uploaded anywhere will not appear.

Where you can still upload

FamilyTreeDNA. Upload is free and accepts AncestryDNA, 23andMe and MyHeritage files, with relative matching and the Family Finder Matrix included at no cost. FamilyTreeDNA's upload page still listed a $19 unlock for its ethnicity estimate, chromosome browser and chromosome painter when we checked. The genetic genealogist Roberta Estes reported in August 2026 that the unlock for uploaded files was being retired on 18 August, with matching unaffected, so check what your account offers. One snag reported in the same post: AncestryDNA files from December 2025 onward were not uploading successfully at the time.

Living DNA. Upload is free and accepts files from AncestryDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and others, as TXT, CSV, ZIP or GZ. Matching runs through its Family Networks feature, which you opt into. The free result includes a continental ancestry breakdown; fuller regional ancestry is a paid upgrade.

GEDmatch itself. Worth repeating because it is easy to forget while shopping for a replacement: it remains the only place where testers from every company meet. Leaving it removes those matches, and they do not come back from anywhere else.

Where you cannot upload any more

MyHeritage. Its help centre says DNA uploads are no longer supported and that you now need a MyHeritage DNA kit to get matches. Uploads were paused in August 2025. Kits uploaded before that still receive matches.

Ancestry and 23andMe. Neither accepts DNA files from other companies. Both let you download your own raw data, which is the file you take elsewhere. 23andMe's customer database now sits with the 23andMe Research Institute, a non-profit that bought the company's assets out of bankruptcy in July 2025.

Geneanet. Its DNA section was removed on 20 December 2023 and the raw data files deleted the same day. The family tree and records side of Geneanet continues.

Side by side

The setting that matters most: law enforcement

This is where the sites differ most, and the differences are easy to misread.

GEDmatch offers two choices. Opted in, your kit can be compared with kits law enforcement submits to identify violent-crime suspects or unidentified human remains. Opted out, you are excluded from the violent-crime comparisons but still included in comparisons that try to identify human remains. Opting out is therefore not opting out of everything.

FamilyTreeDNA calls the feature Investigative Genetic Genealogy Matching. Recent accounts of its policy describe it as off by default: you are included only if you switch it on under Account Settings, Privacy and Sharing. If you tested years ago under the older opt-out arrangement, check the setting rather than assuming.

Living DNA has no law enforcement matching option. Its privacy statement says it shares genetic data with law enforcement only if required by law, which is the same legal floor every company is held to, not a search feature police can use.

Whatever you decide, decide it before the upload, not after a match turns up.

One disclosure

We make KleioBase, which does no DNA testing or DNA matching and is not an option on this page. Nothing above was written to route you here.

Where the two meet is after the match: a DNA match tells you two people share an ancestor, and the documents tell you which one. If you are working a match back through parish registers and civil records, that is the part our connected archive is built for.

Where to start

Download your raw data from whichever company you tested with. Upload it to FamilyTreeDNA and Living DNA, read each site's law enforcement setting as you sign up, and leave your GEDmatch kit where it is. That covers every database that still takes a transfer, at no cost.

If you tested at MyHeritage before August 2025 and already uploaded elsewhere, you have nothing to redo. If you are choosing a first test now, the Ancestry alternatives page weighs the database sizes, because no upload will put you in front of customers of a company you did not test with.