DebugBear vs Lighthouse (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Lighthouse grades higher than DebugBear: 3.2 against 2.2 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
Lighthouse grades higher on value for money, the free plan and ease of use. They get the same grade on features and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
DebugBear
Page speed and Core Web Vitals monitoring with lab tests and RUM
Lighthouse
Google's open-source audit of page speed, accessibility and SEO
Which one is for you
Pick DebugBear if
- Fits if you need lab, real-user and CrUX speed data for a site in one account
- Works for developers who want slow-page fixes as prompts for Claude Code or Cursor
Look elsewhere if
- Pricey if you have one small site, at $99 a month on yearly billing with no free plan
- Tight if you run several sites, as Startup covers 1 project and Team at $249 has 5
- Watch out: extra real-user page views, tests and projects are added for an extra monthly fee
- Not for you if you need SSO or invoice payment, which are Enterprise only at a custom price
Pick Lighthouse if
- Fits if you're a web developer fixing speed and accessibility problems on a page
- Works for adding automated page audits to continuous integration
Look elsewhere if
- Too light for watching a whole site, as it audits one page per run
- Skip it if you don't want to install Node 22 and Chrome, which the command-line and Node routes need
- Watch out: the Agentic Browsing category is experimental, needs Chrome 150 or later and an origin trial for its WebMCP audits
- Not for you if you planned to use the extension on local sites or pages behind a login, which it can't test
How we grade them
| 2.2GPADebugBearFair | 3.2GPALighthouseVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CStartup is $99 a month billed yearly ($1,188 a year) for 4,000 lab tests, 100,000 real-user page views and 1 project, in this category's dearer quarter. Team is $249 and Corporate / Agency $699. | AFree and open source under Apache 2.0, built into Chrome DevTools and also run from the command line, a Node module, a Chrome extension or PageSpeed Insights. |
| Free plan and trial | CNo free plan, but the 14-day trial needs no card. After it, plans start at $99 a month on yearly billing. | AEvery audit category, report format and plugin is free, with no account. |
| Features | CLighthouse lab tests including logged-in pages and user flows, real user Core Web Vitals with INP attribution, CrUX tracking against competitors, waterfalls, speed experiments, alerts and uptime checks. It does speed monitoring fully, but that's a smaller job. | CFour audit categories with a fix for each failed check, pages behind a login, stack packs and plugins, plus an experimental check of readiness for AI agents. The gap the listing shows: one page per run, so regressions across a site need Lighthouse CI or another tool. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. You set up projects, pages and test schedules, then read waterfalls across three kinds of data. | BNo rating on record. If you have Chrome, it's already in DevTools with nothing to install. The command-line and Node routes need Node 22 or later. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with an API, Slack, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, Looker Studio, Netlify, Vercel and CircleCI. No desktop or phone app. | BRuns in Chrome DevTools, from the command line, as a Node module for CI, as a Chrome extension and through PageSpeed Insights, with reports shared as GitHub gists. |
| Best for | speed and Core Web Vitals monitoring | auditing one page's speed, accessibility and SEO |
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: DebugBear and Lighthouse. How we grade
Price against what you get
DebugBear starts at $99 a month and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Lighthouse has no paid plan and scores 2.7.
Lighthouse scores higher and starts $99 a month lower. Of the other technical SEO tools on the chart, 7 score higher than DebugBear for less, and none scores higher than Lighthouse 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
- Lighthouse is open source, according to its own site.
- DebugBear also covers dashboards.
- Lighthouse also covers site audit.
At a glance
| DebugBear | Lighthouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free |
| Starts at | $99 per month, billed yearly ($1,188 a year) | Free |
| Free plan | None | Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license: run it in Chrome DevTools, the command line, a Node script, the Chrome extension or PageSpeed Insights. |
| Free trial | 14-day free trial, no credit card required | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Browser extension | ||
| Made by | DebugBear Ltd | |
| Price read from | debugbear.com | developer.chrome.com |
| Checked | Oct 23, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
DebugBear
- There is no free plan; after the 14-day trial, plans start at $99 a month on yearly billing.
- Startup covers 1 project and 10 users; more projects need Team (5) or Corporate / Agency (100).
- Extra RUM page views, synthetic tests and projects can be added to a plan for an extra monthly fee.
- Single sign-on, invoice payment and custom data retention come only with the custom-priced Enterprise plan.
Lighthouse
- The command-line and Node workflows need Google Chrome and Node 22 or later installed.
- Audits one page per run; Lighthouse CI or another tool is needed to watch for regressions across a site.
- The Agentic Browsing category is experimental, needs Chrome 150 or later, and its WebMCP audits need an origin trial.
- The Chrome extension cannot test local sites or pages behind a login; Google recommends DevTools instead.
Key features
DebugBear
- Synthetic monitoring
- Scheduled and on-demand Lighthouse lab tests from test locations around the world, including pages behind a login and multi-step user flows.
- Real user monitoring
- Measures Core Web Vitals for real visitors and shows which page elements and scripts cause slow interactions that hurt INP.
- Google CrUX data
- Tracks Chrome User Experience Report data over time and compares your site's real-visitor speed with competitors.
- Waterfalls and recommendations
- Request waterfalls tied to CPU and rendering activity, automatic fix suggestions, and ready-made prompts for coding agents such as Claude Code or Cursor.
- Page speed experiments
- Try an optimization on a test run to see its effect before deploying the change to the live site.
- Alerts, comparisons and exports
- Automatic alerts on regressions, before-and-after comparisons, chart annotations, video exports and PDF or CSV reports. Data is kept for 24 months.
Lighthouse
- Four audit categories
- Scores performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO, and each failed audit links to a page on why it matters and how to fix it.
- Several ways to run it
- A Lighthouse panel in Chrome DevTools, an npm command-line tool, a Node module for CI systems, a Chrome extension, or PageSpeed Insights with nothing to install.
- Pages behind a login
- Audits any page, public or requiring authentication; the DevTools workflow can also test local sites.
- Agentic Browsing audits
- An experimental category checks llms.txt, WebMCP tool registration and accessibility for agents, shown as a pass ratio rather than a 0 to 100 score.
- Reports and sharing
- Save reports as HTML or JSON, open them in the Lighthouse Viewer, and share them as secret GitHub gists.
- Stack packs and plugins
- Stack packs give advice specific to the CMS or framework a site uses, and plugins let developers add their own audit categories.
Plans
DebugBear
Startup$99
per month, billed yearly ($1,188 a year)
4,000 synthetic tests (about 125 pages tested daily), 100,000 RUM page views, 10 uptime monitors, 1 project and 10 users.
Team$249
per month, billed yearly ($2,988 a year)
10,000 synthetic tests (about 320 pages daily), 500,000 RUM page views, 50 uptime monitors, 5 projects and 50 users.
Corporate / Agency$699
per month, billed yearly ($8,388 a year)
50,000 synthetic tests (about 1,600 pages daily), 2 million RUM page views, 100 monitors, 100 projects and unlimited users.
EnterpriseCustom
Custom quotes with invoice payment, single sign-on, security forms, custom contracts and data retention, training and Slack support.
Lighthouse
Open source$0
Every audit category, HTML and JSON reports, the Lighthouse Viewer, stack packs and plugins.
Ways to pay less
DebugBear
- Annual discount
Save 20% with yearly billing
DebugBear's pricing page marks yearly billing as a 20% saving over paying month to month.
Lighthouse
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, DebugBear or Lighthouse?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Lighthouse is cheaper to start with: it is free, against $99 a month for DebugBear. DebugBear starts at $99 per month, billed yearly ($1,188 a year), and Lighthouse is free.
Which has a free plan, DebugBear or Lighthouse?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only Lighthouse has a free plan. DebugBear does not, though it has a free trial.
Which platforms do DebugBear and Lighthouse run on?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only Lighthouse lists a browser extension. Both list 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.