Screaming Frog SEO Spider vs Siteliner (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Siteliner share a 2.4 GPA, both have a free plan and their prices can't be set side by side, so the choice depends on whether you care more about value for money and the free plan, where Screaming Frog SEO Spider grades higher, or ease of use and platforms, where Siteliner does.
Checked Oct 17, 2026 and Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 17, 2026 and Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
They get the same grade on features.
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
Siteliner
Free site scan for internal duplicate content and broken links
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 Siteliner if
- Fits if your site is small and you want to find text repeated across its own pages
- Works for occasional bigger scans paid by the page rather than by the month
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you stay free, at 250 pages once every 30 days per site
- Too light for checking copies on other websites, which is Copyscape's job
- Pricey if you scan big sites often, at 1¢ a page, so $300 for a 30,000-page scan
- Watch out: summary reports are kept for 185 days and page reports for 60
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAScreaming Frog SEO SpiderFair | 2.4GPASitelinerFair | |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | CPremium has no subscription: each page scanned costs 1¢ from prepaid credits, up to 30,000 pages. A 5,000-page scan is $50, where Spotibo's Lite crawls 5,000 URLs a month for $14. |
| 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. | CA free scan of a site's 250 most prominent pages, with no sign-up. But it's once every 30 days per site, so you can't re-check straight after a fix. |
| 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. | CInternal duplicate content with the matching passages highlighted, broken internal links, Page Power scores, skipped-page reports and an XML sitemap. It does that job fully, but it's a smaller job, and duplicates on other websites need Copyscape. |
| 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. | BNo rating on record. You type in a site address and the scan runs, with no account and nothing to set 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 only, with no app. Premium has a JSON API, at 1¢ a request for up to 100 rows. |
| Best for | technical site audits on your own computer | finding text repeated across your own site |
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 Siteliner. How we grade
Where they differ
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider also covers reports.
At a glance
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Siteliner | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $279 per user / year | Not published |
| 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. | Free scan of a site's 250 most prominent pages, once every 30 days per site, with no sign-up. Premium scans cost 1¢ per page from prepaid credits. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| Made by | Screaming Frog Ltd | Indigo Stream Technologies |
| Price read from | screamingfrog.co.uk | siteliner.com |
| 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.
Siteliner
- Siteliner Premium has no subscription: each page scanned costs 1¢, paid from credits bought in advance by card or PayPal.
- The free scan stops at 250 pages and can be run on a site only once every 30 days.
- It checks internal duplicate content only; copies on other websites are the job of Copyscape, a separate service.
- Summary reports are kept for 185 days and highlighted page reports for 60 days.
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.
Siteliner
- Internal duplicate content
- Shows how much of each page's text also appears on other pages, highlights the matching passages, and leaves out menus and other common content.
- Broken link check
- Checks every internal link and highlights the broken ones on the page where they appear.
- Page Power
- Scores each page from 0 to 100 by how prominently it is linked from other well-linked pages on the site.
- Reports and XML sitemap
- Gives a summary of every scanned page, a list of skipped pages with the reason, and a standard XML sitemap of the site.
- Premium API
- Premium accounts can query results in JSON; each request that returns results costs 1¢ and returns up to 100 rows.
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.
Siteliner
Siteliner Free$0
Scans up to 250 pages of a site once every 30 days for duplicate content, broken links and Page Power.
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.
Siteliner
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Siteliner?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Screaming Frog SEO Spider starts at $279 per user / year, and Siteliner publishes no starting price.
Which has a free plan, Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Siteliner?
As of Oct 23, 2026, both Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Siteliner have a free plan.
Which platforms do Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Siteliner run on?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only Screaming Frog SEO Spider lists macOS, Windows and Linux apps and only Siteliner lists a web app. 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.