Screaming Frog SEO Spider vs Sitechecker (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Screaming Frog SEO Spider grades higher than Sitechecker: 2.4 against 2.2 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 17, 2026 and Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 17, 2026 and Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
Screaming Frog SEO Spider grades higher on value for money and the free plan. Sitechecker grades higher on platforms. They get the same grade on features and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Desktop website crawler for technical SEO audits
Sitechecker
Site audits, monitoring, rank and AI visibility tracking for agencies
Which one is for you
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 Sitechecker if
- Fits if you look after many client sites and need to know when one breaks
- Works for agencies with many people, since every plan has unlimited users
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you need keyword or backlink research, which it doesn't list
- Tight if you track keywords in several places, as each engine, location, language or device uses another keyword
- Pricey if you want the app under your own brand, which starts at Premium for $375
- Tight if you're on Basic, with 3 websites, weekly rescans and 12 months of data
- Watch out: refunds cover only the first payment within 48 hours, and a failed payment ends access
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAScreaming Frog SEO SpiderFair | 2.2GPASitecheckerFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BGraded against its alternatives. A licence is $279 a year per user, about $23.25 a month, with no crawl limit and JavaScript rendering. Only Sitebulb Lite is cheaper, and it stops at 10,000 URLs; Semrush and Ahrefs cost about five times as much. | CBasic is $83 a month on yearly billing ($99 monthly) for 3 websites, 500 keywords and 50 AI prompts. That's toward the dear end of this category's middle, with unlimited users on every plan. |
| Free plan and trial | BA free version with no sign-up crawls up to 500 URLs with the core audits, for as long as you like, so small sites can live on it. It can't save crawls, change settings, render JavaScript or pull in Google data. | CNo free plan, but 14 days of full access free. Refunds only cover the first payment, within 48 hours, so do your testing in the trial. |
| Features | CIt does the crawling job fully: 300+ issues, JavaScript rendering, custom extraction, scheduling, crawl comparison and sitemaps. But that's one part of SEO, with no keyword research, rank tracking or backlink index. | CSite audits for 300+ issues, change and uptime monitoring, rank tracking on Google, Bing and Yahoo, Search Console dashboards and AI visibility. There's no keyword or backlink research on record, and Basic rescans weekly. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. Enter a URL and it crawls, but reading the results takes technical SEO knowledge, and custom extraction runs on XPath, CSS Path or regex. | CNo rating on record. You add sites and keywords, then alerts, dashboards and reports for each client take setting up. |
| Platforms and integrations | CA program for Windows, Mac and Linux, linked to Google Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, OpenAI, Gemini, Looker Studio and Sheets. Computers only, with no web or phone version. | BWeb plus a browser extension, connected to Search Console, GA4, Looker Studio, Sheets, Slack, ChatGPT and Claude, with an API and an MCP server. No desktop or phone app. |
| Best for | technical site audits on your own computer | watching many client sites for breakage |
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: Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Sitechecker. How we grade
Price against what you get
Screaming Frog SEO Spider starts at $23.25 a month when paid by the year for each person and scores 2.0 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Sitechecker starts at $83 a month and scores 2.3.
Sitechecker scores higher, and starts $59.75 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other SEO tools on the chart, 10 score higher than Screaming Frog SEO Spider for less, and 13 score higher than Sitechecker 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
- Sitechecker also covers rank tracking, dashboards and AI search visibility.
At a glance
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Sitechecker | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Starts at | $279 per user / year | $83 per month for 500 keywords, billed annually ($99 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | Free version, no sign-up: crawls up to 500 URLs at a time with the core audits, but cannot save crawls, change the crawl configuration, render JavaScript or use integrations. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | 14 days of full access free |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| Browser extension | ||
| Made by | Screaming Frog Ltd | Cyber Circus Limited |
| Price read from | screamingfrog.co.uk | sitechecker.pro |
| Checked | Oct 17, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
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.
Sitechecker
- Refunds cover only the first payment, within 48 hours of the subscription starting.
- Each extra search engine, location, language or device for a keyword uses another keyword from the plan's limit.
- Basic rescans sites weekly and keeps 12 months of data; app branding and a custom domain start at Premium.
- Cancelling or a failed payment ends access, and data stops being collected.
Key features
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.
Sitechecker
- Site audit
- Crawls sites for more than 300 technical and on-page issues, with JavaScript rendering, unlimited recrawls and how-to-fix guides.
- Website monitoring and alerts
- Watches for content, status code, robots.txt and hreflang changes, removed tracking codes, SSL and domain expiry, with uptime checks every 5 minutes.
- Rank Tracker
- Tracks the top 100 positions in Google, Bing or Yahoo by location, language and device, with SERP history and up to 15 competitors.
- Search Console and GA4 dashboards
- Reports on Search Console data past its 1,000-row export limit, blended GSC and GA4 reports, and SEO tests comparing page versions.
- AI visibility tracking
- Tracks brand mentions and citations on ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Copilot and AI Overviews, plus AI traffic from GA4.
- White label, API and MCP
- White-label PDF reports and app branding, an API across six data sources, and an MCP server for ChatGPT, Claude and Codex.
Plans
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.
Sitechecker
Basic$83
per month for 500 keywords, billed annually ($99 billed monthly)
3 websites, 50 AI prompts, 10,000 crawl pages and weekly monitoring. A larger step with 6 websites and 2,000 keywords costs more.
Standard$208
per month for 2,500 keywords, billed annually ($249 billed monthly)
20 websites, 150 prompts on 5 AI models, 50,000 crawl pages, daily monitoring, Slack alerts and SEO tests. A larger step has 40 sites.
Premium$375
per month for 5,000 keywords, billed annually ($449 billed monthly)
50 websites, 250 prompts, 200,000 crawl pages, checks every 12 hours, and the app white-labeled on your own domain.
EnterpriseCustom
Unlimited websites, keywords and prompts, team training, a dedicated success manager, custom exports and integrations.
Ways to pay less
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.
Sitechecker
- Annual discount
Two months free with annual billing
Annual billing gives 2 months free: Basic is $83 a month instead of $99, saving $198 a year.
- Education
Free premium access for students of partner schools
Through Sitechecker's educational partnership, schools can give their students free access to premium features during training.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Sitechecker?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Screaming Frog SEO Spider starts at $279 per user / year, and Sitechecker starts at $83 per month for 500 keywords, billed annually ($99 billed monthly). One is priced for each person and the other is not, so which costs less depends on how many of you use it.
Which has a free plan, Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Sitechecker?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only Screaming Frog SEO Spider has a free plan. Sitechecker does not, though it has a free trial.
Which platforms do Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Sitechecker run on?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only Screaming Frog SEO Spider lists macOS, Windows and Linux apps and only Sitechecker lists a web app and a browser extension. 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.