DebugBear vs sitespeed.io (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, sitespeed.io grades higher than DebugBear: 2.6 against 2.2 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
DebugBear grades higher on ease of use and platforms. sitespeed.io grades higher on value for money and the free plan. They get the same grade on features.
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
sitespeed.io
Free open-source toolkit for testing and monitoring web performance
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 sitespeed.io if
- Fits if you're a developer who wants synthetic performance tests with no license cost
- Works for teams building their own performance dashboards in Grafana
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you don't use a command line, as there's no hosted service or account
- Watch out: ongoing monitoring needs your own server and storage, around $500 a year by the project's estimate
- Not for you if you need a vendor behind it, as the project says one core member maintains it in their free time
- Too light for real-user monitoring, which only comes in as CrUX data through a plugin
How we grade them
| 2.2GPADebugBearFair | 2.6GPAsitespeed.ioGood | |
|---|---|---|
| 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, with nothing to sign up for, and it runs on your own computer through Docker or npm. Scheduled monitoring needs a server and storage, which the project puts at around $500 a year. |
| 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. | AEntirely free, with every feature included and no account. The only costs are the machine you run it on and storage for results. |
| 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. | CHTML reports with Core Web Vitals, video, HAR waterfall and advice, tests in real browsers and on phones, scripted journeys, CI budgets and Grafana dashboards. It covers synthetic speed testing fully, a smaller job than technical SEO, and real-user figures only come through a CrUX plugin. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. You set up projects, pages and test schedules, then read waterfalls across three kinds of data. | DA command-line tool run through Docker or npm, and monitoring means setting up Graphite or InfluxDB with Grafana on your own server. No hosted version. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with an API, Slack, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, Looker Studio, Netlify, Vercel and CircleCI. No desktop or phone app. | CRuns on Mac, Windows and Linux, with Grafana, Graphite, InfluxDB, S3, Google Cloud Storage, GitHub Actions, Jenkins and Slack. It's a program for computers only, with no hosted or phone version. |
| Best for | speed and Core Web Vitals monitoring | free speed tests you run yourself |
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 sitespeed.io. 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. sitespeed.io has no paid plan and scores 1.7.
DebugBear scores higher, and starts $99 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other technical SEO tools on the chart, 7 score higher than DebugBear for less, and none scores higher than sitespeed.io 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
- sitespeed.io is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- DebugBear also covers dashboards.
At a glance
| DebugBear | sitespeed.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free |
| Starts at | $99 per month, billed yearly ($1,188 a year) | Free |
| Free plan | None | Entirely free and open source with nothing to sign up for. The only costs are the server you run it on and storage for results. |
| Free trial | 14-day free trial, no credit card required | None listed |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| Made by | DebugBear Ltd | sitespeed.io |
| Price read from | debugbear.com | sitespeed.io |
| 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.
sitespeed.io
- It is a command-line tool that you install and host yourself; there is no hosted service or account to sign up for.
- Ongoing monitoring needs your own server and storage, which the project estimates at around $500 a year.
- The project says it is maintained by one core member in their free time.
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.
sitespeed.io
- HTML test reports
- Each run reports Core Web Vitals against Google's thresholds, with a filmstrip and video of the load, a HAR waterfall, CPU timeline and the Coach's advice.
- Real browsers and phones
- Tests in Firefox, Chrome and Edge, on Chrome for Android and Safari on iOS over USB, with network throttling to emulate real connections.
- Scripted user journeys
- Scripts can test several URLs, log in, or add items to a cart, and single-page applications are supported.
- Dashboards and monitoring
- A Docker Compose setup runs sitespeed.io with Graphite and Grafana and ready-made dashboards, for scheduled tests tracked over time.
- Budgets and CI
- Performance budgets can fail a build, with JUnit or TAP output for Jenkins, CircleCI, GitLab CI and GitHub Actions, and alerts on regressions.
- Plugins and other tools
- Plugins run Lighthouse, PageSpeed Insights, CrUX data collection, axe accessibility checks and statistical comparison of runs.
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.
sitespeed.io
Open source$0
The full toolkit, self-hosted. The project puts a single cloud server plus S3 storage at around $500 a year.
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.
sitespeed.io
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, DebugBear or sitespeed.io?
As of Oct 23, 2026, sitespeed.io 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 sitespeed.io is free.
Which has a free plan, DebugBear or sitespeed.io?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only sitespeed.io has a free plan. DebugBear does not, though it has a free trial.
Which platforms do DebugBear and sitespeed.io run on?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only DebugBear lists a web app and only sitespeed.io lists macOS, Windows and Linux apps. 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.