Screaming Frog SEO Spider vs SEOnaut (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 SEOnaut if

• Fits if your site fits in 500 URLs and you want a free hosted crawler
• Works for teams that want to run their SEO crawler on their own server

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you outgrow Growth's 5 projects of 10,000 URLs, as more means emailing the developer
• Watch out: self-hosting needs Docker or Go plus MySQL, and HTTPS through a reverse proxy
• Not for you if you want support beyond email, as self-hosted copies go through GitHub Issues
• Skip it if you want free audits on a schedule, as only the paid Growth plan lists recurring audits

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.

SEOnaut

• The hosted Growth plan stops at 5 projects and 10,000 URLs each; larger needs are handled by emailing the developer.
• Self-hosting needs Docker or Go plus a MySQL database, and the project recommends adding HTTPS through a reverse proxy.
• Support is by email for the hosted service and through GitHub Issues for self-hosted copies; there is no forum.
• Of the hosted plans, only the paid Growth plan lists recurring audits; Lite crawls run on demand.

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.

SEOnaut

Issues ranked by severity

Each crawl produces a report that groups problems as critical, high or low, from broken links and redirect loops to duplicate titles and descriptions.

On-page and content checks

Audits titles, descriptions, heading order, hreflang tags, image alt text and file size, thin or duplicated content, canonicals and HTTP pages.

Crawl settings

The crawler can ignore robots.txt, follow nofollow links, include sitemaps and subdomains, check external links and log in to staging sites with HTTP Basic Auth.

Site structure and dashboard

Spots orphan and dead-end pages, checks response time and timeouts, and charts site health over time on a visual dashboard.

WACZ archives

Saves a crawled site as a WACZ web archive, keeping pages and assets for offline review or record-keeping.

Self-hosting with Docker

Written in Go with a MySQL database; the project publishes a Docker image and a Docker Compose file, and the interface can be translated.

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.

SEOnaut

• Community$0

  The open-source edition under the MIT license, which you host and manage yourself on your own infrastructure.

• Lite$0

  Cloud hosted: 1 project with up to 500 URLs per project. No credit card required.

• Growth$9

  per month for 5 projects of up to 10,000 URLs each

  Cloud hosted: 5 projects, 10,000 URLs per project and recurring audits. An annual plan gives one month free.

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.

SEOnaut

• Annual discount

  One month free with annual billing

  SEOnaut's pricing FAQ says the annual plan gives one month free compared with paying monthly.