DebugBear vs SpeedCurve (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, DebugBear and SpeedCurve share a 2.2 GPA, neither has a free plan, and SpeedCurve starts cheaper, at $90 a month against $99 a month.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
They get the same grade on all five counts.
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
SpeedCurve
Web performance monitoring with RUM, synthetic tests and budgets
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 SpeedCurve if
- Fits if you want to see whether faster pages line up with more conversions
- Works for teams of any size, since users and teams are unlimited
Look elsewhere if
- Watch out: every URL, browser, region and scheduled run counts as a check, so testing many pages in many places adds up fast
- Not for you if you might cancel mid-year, as annual plans get no prorated refund
- Pricey if you want 13 months of data or priority support, which start at $500 a month
- Tight if you need SSO or private test agents, which need an annual plan over $12,000
- Watch out: paying by invoice needs a plan of $5,000 a year or more
How we grade them
| 2.2GPADebugBearFair | 2.2GPASpeedCurveFair | |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | CStarter is $90 a month billed annually for 500,000 page views and 3,000 checks, in this category's dearer quarter. Before the 20% annual discount, checks are $15 per 1,000 and page views $135 per million. |
| 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. | CNo free plan. You get a free trial account before subscribing; its length isn't stated, and nothing on record says it needs a card. |
| 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. | CReal user monitoring with conversion correlation, scripted lab tests behind logins, budgets with alerts, Core Web Vitals breakdowns, competitor comparison videos and deploy tests. It does speed monitoring fully, but that's a smaller job. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. You set up projects, pages and test schedules, then read waterfalls across three kinds of data. | CNo rating on record. You build a plan from page views and checks, set up real user monitoring and script lab tests, and every URL, browser and region adds checks to watch. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with an API, Slack, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, Looker Studio, Netlify, Vercel and CircleCI. No desktop or phone app. | BWeb, with an API, Slack, GitHub, CircleCI and Shopify, plus email and webhook alerts. No desktop or phone app. |
| Best for | speed and Core Web Vitals monitoring | real user and lab speed data with budgets |
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 SpeedCurve. 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. SpeedCurve starts at $90 a month and scores 2.3.
They score the same, and SpeedCurve starts $9 a month lower. Of the other technical SEO tools on the chart, 7 score higher than DebugBear for less, and 6 score higher than SpeedCurve 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
At a glance
| DebugBear | SpeedCurve | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free trial |
| Starts at | $99 per month, billed yearly ($1,188 a year) | $90 per month, billed annually, for 500K page views and 3K checks |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | 14-day free trial, no credit card required | Free trial account before subscribing; its length is not stated |
| Web | ||
| Made by | DebugBear Ltd | SpeedCurve |
| Price read from | debugbear.com | speedcurve.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.
SpeedCurve
- The listed prices include a 20% annual discount, and an annual plan cancelled partway through gets no prorated refund.
- Synthetic checks count every URL, browser, region and scheduled run, so testing many pages in several places raises the cost quickly.
- 13-month data retention and priority support start at $500 a month; single sign-on and private agents need an annual plan over $12,000.
- Paying by invoice is limited to plans of $5,000 a year or more.
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.
SpeedCurve
- Real user monitoring
- Measures page views from real visitors, with sampling to control cost, custom data, conversion correlation and A/B test segments.
- Synthetic monitoring
- Scheduled tests in several browsers and regions, with scripting for user flows, pages behind a login and private staging sites.
- Performance budgets and alerts
- Set budgets on RUM and synthetic metrics and get alerts by email, Slack or webhook when a page crosses one.
- Core Web Vitals debugging
- Breaks Core Web Vitals into subparts, finds layout shift causes, and tracks first- and third-party requests and JavaScript impact.
- Competitive benchmarking
- Test competitors' pages alongside your own and produce side-by-side comparison videos.
- CI/CD and deploy testing
- Trigger tests on each deploy through the API, the GitHub integration or CI tools such as CircleCI, and mark deployments on charts.
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.
SpeedCurve
Starter$90
per month, billed annually, for 500K page views and 3K checks
Unlimited users and teams, RUM and synthetic monitoring. Priced at $15 per 1,000 checks and $135 per million page views, less 20% for annual billing.
Growth$576
per month, billed annually, for 2M page views and 30K checks
Plans above $500 a month add 13 months of data retention, high-priority support and priority synthetic testing.
EnterpriseCustom
Single sign-on, private test agents and regular check-ins on annual plans above $12,000 a year, and consulting above $20,000 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.
SpeedCurve
- Annual discount
Save 20% with annual billing
SpeedCurve's plan builder and billing docs give a 20% discount for paying annually instead of monthly.
- Other savings
10% volume discount on larger plans
The plan builder takes a further 10% off when a plan comes to more than $25,000 a year.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, DebugBear or SpeedCurve?
As of Oct 23, 2026, SpeedCurve is cheaper to start with: $90 a month, against $99 a month for DebugBear. DebugBear starts at $99 per month, billed yearly ($1,188 a year), and SpeedCurve starts at $90 per month, billed annually, for 500K page views and 3K checks.
Which has a free plan, DebugBear or SpeedCurve?
As of Oct 23, 2026, neither DebugBear nor SpeedCurve has a free plan. Both have a free trial.
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.