Beam Us Up vs Screaming Frog SEO Spider (2026): which should you pick?

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 Screaming Frog SEO Spider if

• Fits if you're a technical SEO who audits large sites from your own computer
• Works for sites under 500 URLs, which the free version crawls with no time limit

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want keyword research, rank tracking or backlinks, as it only crawls
• Not for you if you'd rather not learn technical SEO terms, XPath or regex
• Tight if your computer is short on memory or storage, since crawl size depends on it, and there's no web or phone version
• Pricey if a team needs it: licences are $279 per user a year, so two people need two
• Watch out: the free version can't save crawls, render JavaScript, schedule audits or connect to Google data

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.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

• Licences are per user and last one year; two people need two licences.
• It is a desktop app, so crawl size depends on the computer's memory and storage.
• The free version cannot save crawls, render JavaScript, schedule audits or connect to Google data.

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.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Technical SEO audit

Find broken links, server errors, redirect chains, missing or duplicate titles and descriptions, and directives such as noindex and canonicals.

JavaScript rendering

With a licence, render pages in a built-in Chromium to crawl sites built with frameworks such as React, Angular and Vue.

Custom extraction and search

Pull any data from page HTML with XPath, CSS Path or regex, and search source code across a whole crawl (licence only).

Google and AI integrations

Pull Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights data into a crawl, or run pages through OpenAI and Gemini (licence only).

Scheduling and crawl comparison

Schedule crawls with exports to Google Sheets or run them from the command line, and compare crawls or staging against production.

Site visualisations and sitemaps

See site structure as force-directed and tree diagrams, and generate XML and image sitemaps from a crawl.

Beam Us Up

• Free$0

  The full desktop crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux, with no limits stated on the site.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

• Free$0

  Up to 500 URLs per crawl, broken links, redirects, metadata, duplicates, XML sitemaps and site visualisations.

• Paid licence$279

  per user / year, for 1 to 4 licences

  No crawl limit beyond memory and storage, saved crawls, scheduling, JavaScript rendering, crawl comparison, integrations and support. £199 in pounds.

Beam Us Up

No public discounts listed.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

• Other savings

  Volume pricing from 5 licences

  Buying 5 to 9 licences at once costs $265 each a year, 10 to 19 cost $249 each, and 20 or more cost $235 each, against $279 for 1 to 4.