Screaming Frog SEO Spider vs SEO Utils (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 Utils if

• Fits if you'd rather pay once for a desktop app than pay for an SEO suite every month
• Works for people who already pay DataForSEO for search data and want an app on top

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want to try it first, as there's no free plan or trial on record
• Watch out: keyword, backlink, traffic and AI answer data are billed to your own DataForSEO account
• Pricey if you want it in a browser or on a phone, as Remote Access is $5.99 a month plus $1.99 per extra seat
• Skip it if you want a technical site audit, as none is on record beyond Search Console and internal link checks
• Watch out: updates stop after a year unless you renew, an expired key can't move to another computer, and MCP is $59.99 extra

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 Utils

• Backlink, traffic, keyword and AI answer data come from your own DataForSEO account, billed separately; AI tracking costs about $1.20 per 1,000 queries.
• Using the app from a browser or phone needs Remote Access at $5.99 a month for 1 seat, plus $1.99 a month for each extra seat.
• The MCP server for Claude and other AI clients is a separate $59.99 one-time purchase.
• Updates stop after a year unless the license is renewed, and an expired key cannot be activated on another computer.

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 Utils

Organic Rank Tracker

Track unlimited keywords on Google or Bing, on desktop and mobile, with 10+ SERP features and competitor benchmarks, and sync GA4 conversions by page.

LLM Rank Tracker

Checks whether Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT (with and without web search) and Gemini mention or cite a brand, with sentiment and competitors.

Google Maps tracking and citations

Grid-based Google Business Profile rank tracking in square, circle or custom shapes, plus a finder for inconsistent name, address and phone listings.

Keyword research and clustering

Keyword Explorer for Google and Bing, local semantic clustering with no keyword limit, and SERP clustering for up to 200,000 keywords.

Search Console tools

Keeps Search Console data beyond Google's 16-month limit, flags cannibalization, runs SEO split tests and submits URLs for indexing in bulk.

Internal links and log files

Suggests new internal links with the sentence to add, applied to WordPress on approval, and reads server logs for Googlebot, Bingbot and AI crawlers.

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 Utils

• Desktop License Key$69

  one-time, with one year of updates

  Every feature of the app on your own computer. After the year of updates you can keep using the last version you received.

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 Utils

No public discounts listed.