Screaming Frog SEO Spider vs SEO Spider Tools (2026): which should you pick?

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

Pick SEO Spider Tools if

• Fits if you check a page's redirects, directives and broken links while browsing
• Works for site owners who want an .htaccess file for redirects and caching without writing it

Look elsewhere if

• Too light for whole-site audits, which SpiderNow sells on its website from $6.99 a month
• Watch out: the listing doesn't say whether it needs a SpiderNow account or counts against that account's scans
• Skip it if you're on Firefox or Safari, as only Chrome and Edge versions are listed
• Watch out: the Chrome version was last updated in October 2023, and the developer isn't a declared trader, so EU consumer rights don't apply

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.

SEO Spider Tools

• Full-site scans and reports are sold on SpiderNow's website: a free account covers a few single-page scans a month, and paid plans start at $6.99 a month.
• The listing does not say whether the extension needs a SpiderNow account or counts against its scan limits.
• Chrome and Edge versions are listed; the Chrome listing was last updated on October 11, 2023.
• The developer has not identified itself as a trader, so EU consumer rights do not apply, as the store listing notes.

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.

SEO Spider Tools

Indexing directives

Finds URLs blocked by robots.txt and pages set to noindex, nofollow, noarchive or nosnippet, and shows resources blocked from rendering.

Links and redirects

Lists inlinks and outlinks with anchor text and follow status, and finds broken links, redirect chains and loops, JavaScript redirects and meta refreshes.

Status and speed

Shows status codes, SSL, server type, response time, file sizes and load time, plus Core Web Vitals scores for mobile and desktop from PageSpeed Insights.

Tags and structured data

Checks titles, descriptions and H1 to H6 headings for length and duplicates, canonical and hreflang tags, schema errors and pages under 250 words.

Content editor

Edit page text with alerts on title, description and heading limits, and counts of characters, words, sentences, repeated words and keyword density.

.htaccess generator

Builds an .htaccess file with 301 redirects, a www rewrite, caching rules for scripts and images, hotlink protection and custom error pages.

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.

SEO Spider Tools

• Free$0

  The extension's on-page and technical checks, free from the Chrome Web Store.

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.

SEO Spider Tools

No public discounts listed.