Beam Us Up vs CrawlCenter (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Beam Us Up grades higher than CrawlCenter: 3.0 against 2.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
Beam Us Up grades higher on the free plan and ease of use. They get the same grade on value for money, features and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
CrawlCenter
Simple cloud crawler with on-page SEO reports and a free plan
Which one is for you
Pick Beam Us Up if
- Fits if you want a site crawler without a subscription
- Works for developers who want to run crawls from the command line or a server
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you need support you can count on, as it's one developer's project answered through site comments
- Too light for very big audits, since crawls use up to half your computer's memory and Excel exports stop at 65,536 rows
- Skip it if you want crawls run in the cloud, as it only runs on your own computer
- Watch out: its own site says paid crawlers such as Screaming Frog and Netpeak do more
Pick CrawlCenter if
- Fits if you own a small site and want on-page basics checked for little or nothing
- Works for one-off checks with its 46 stand-alone tools, which need no account
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if your pages are built with JavaScript, which the crawler ignores
- Watch out: it doesn't follow redirects, so redirected URLs show as pages without titles or canonicals
- Tight if you stay free, at one 50-URL project with ads
- Too light for sites past 2,000 URLs, the Silver cap per project
- Watch out: its pricing page offers refunds for 14 days, its FAQ for 1, and the footer still reads 2021
How we grade them
| 3.0GPABeam Us UpVery good | 2.4GPACrawlCenterFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AFree, with no paid plans and no crawl limits stated. You download it and run it on your own computer, which counts as free and substantial on our ladder. | ASilver is $3 a month for 10 projects of up to 2,000 URLs each, well under 60% of this category's cheaper quarter of $13. |
| Free plan and trial | AFree outright. The only extra is a free Google API key of your own if you want PageSpeed scores. | CThe free Basic plan has every report and unlimited crawls, but 1 project of 50 URLs, shown with ads, and the project can be deleted only once a month. |
| Features | CFinds broken links, redirects, duplicates, missing tags and canonical problems, with bulk PageSpeed, JavaScript rendering, AI bot checks, crawl comparison, a command line and MCP. Its own site says paid crawlers such as Screaming Frog are more capable, and Excel exports stop at 65,536 rows. | C15+ reports on content, titles, descriptions, headings, robots tags, canonicals, broken links, status codes, alt text and response times. The gaps: it ignores JavaScript content, doesn't follow redirects, and Silver stops at 2,000 URLs a project. |
| Ease of use | BNo rating on record. You install it, type a site address and crawl, with nothing else to set up unless you want PageSpeed scores. | CNo rating on record. You register, create a project and run the crawler. Redirected URLs then show up as pages without titles or canonicals, which takes some reading. |
| Platforms and integrations | CWindows, Mac and Linux, plus a command-line crawler and MCP links to Claude, Cursor, VS Code and Gemini CLI. Computers only, though: no web or phone version. | CWeb only, with no API, integrations, desktop or phone app on record. |
| Best for | free desktop crawls with no limits | basic on-page checks of a small site |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Beam Us Up and CrawlCenter. How we grade
Price against what you get
Beam Us Up has no paid plan and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. CrawlCenter starts at $3 a month and scores 2.0.
Beam Us Up scores higher and starts $3 a month lower. Of the other technical SEO tools on the chart, none scores higher than Beam Us Up for less, and 11 score higher than CrawlCenter for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Beam Us Up also covers page speed.
- CrawlCenter also covers schema markup.
At a glance
| Beam Us Up | CrawlCenter | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Free plan |
| Starts at | Free | $3 per month, billed monthly |
| Free plan | The whole crawler is free with no stated crawl limits; PageSpeed scores need your own free Google API key. | Basic plan: 1 project of up to 50 URLs, unlimited crawls and all reports, with ads. The project can be deleted once a month. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| Made by | BeamUsUp | CrawlCenter |
| Price read from | beamusup.com | crawlcenter.com |
| Checked | Oct 23, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Beam Us Up
- It is desktop software only: crawls run on your own computer and can use up to half of its memory.
- The Excel export stops at 65,536 rows per sheet.
- It is a personal project of its developer, and support is offered through comments on the site.
- Its own site says paid crawlers such as Screaming Frog and Netpeak are more capable.
CrawlCenter
- The crawler ignores content generated by JavaScript; its FAQ says JavaScript crawling is not yet available to users.
- It does not follow redirects, so redirected URLs appear as pages without titles or canonicals until the links are updated.
- The free plan stops at one 50-URL project and shows ads; Silver stops at 2,000 URLs per project.
- Its pages disagree on refunds: the pricing page offers 14 days, the FAQ only 1 day. The site's footer still reads 2021.
Key features
Beam Us Up
- Technical crawl checks
- Finds broken links, server and client errors, redirects, duplicate content, page titles, meta descriptions, H1 to H3 headings, canonicals and blocked URLs.
- PageSpeed scores in bulk
- Pulls Google PageSpeed results, including Core Web Vitals from real visitors, for crawled pages using a free Google API key.
- JavaScript rendering
- Version 2.0 can render pages using a Chrome or Edge browser already installed on the computer, set to never, auto or always.
- AI bot access checks
- An AI Access tab shows which of 27 search and AI bots the site's robots.txt allows, checks llms.txt, and can export an llms.txt draft.
- Crawl comparison
- Compares two crawls to show fixed, new and remaining issues and changed pages, with results exported as CSV files.
- Command line and MCP
- Installs a command-line crawler for scripts and servers, and can connect to AI apps such as Claude, Cursor and VS Code over MCP.
CrawlCenter
- On-page SEO reports
- Builds more than 15 reports from each crawl, covering content, titles, meta descriptions, headings, robots meta tags, canonical URLs and nofollow links.
- Broken links and status codes
- Lists broken internal and external links, and an HTTP status report filters pages by code to find 301 and 302 redirects.
- Duplicates and thin content
- Finds pages that share a title, meta description or keywords tag, and pages with little content.
- Links, images and indexability
- Counts internal and external links per page, shows internal anchor text, lists images without alt text and flags pages with a noindex tag.
- Response times
- Records the response time of every crawled page so slow pages can be sorted out without testing them one at a time.
- Free stand-alone tools
- 46 tools that need no account, including redirect, mixed content and SSL expiry checkers and schema generators for FAQs, events, local businesses and organizations.
Plans
Beam Us Up
Free$0
The full desktop crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux, with no limits stated on the site.
CrawlCenter
Basic$0
1 project with up to 50 URLs, unlimited crawls and every report, shown with ads.
Silver$3
per month for 10 projects of up to 2,000 URLs each
10 projects, 2,000 URLs per project, unlimited crawls and project deletions, and no ads. Shown as ₹150 a month when read from India.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Beam Us Up or CrawlCenter?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Beam Us Up is cheaper to start with: it is free, against $3 a month for CrawlCenter. Beam Us Up is free, and CrawlCenter starts at $3 per month, billed monthly.
Which has a free plan, Beam Us Up or CrawlCenter?
As of Oct 23, 2026, both Beam Us Up and CrawlCenter have a free plan.
Which platforms do Beam Us Up and CrawlCenter run on?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only Beam Us Up lists macOS, Windows and Linux apps and only CrawlCenter lists a web app. A platform missing from a listing is one its maker's pages did not mention.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.