SiteOne Crawler vs Visual SEO Studio (2026): which should you pick?

Pick SiteOne Crawler if

• Fits if you want a whole-site audit report without paying for a licence
• Works for developers adding a site quality gate to a CI pipeline

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want crawls run in the cloud, as it runs only on your own computer or server
• Watch out: single-page apps are crawled only in the optional browser mode, which renders them in Chromium
• Not for you if you want AI help with no bill elsewhere, as the assistant uses your own API key or a local model
• Tight if you want reports emailed, which needs an SMTP server of your own
• Watch out: the desktop app comes from the project's own links, not yet the Mac App Store or Microsoft Store

Pick Visual SEO Studio if

• Fits if your site is under 500 pages and you want a free desktop crawler
• Works for SEOs who manage XML sitemaps and hreflang on international sites

Look elsewhere if

• Watch out: the newest version on its download page is from February 2023
• Too light for big sites on the free edition, which stops at 500 pages a crawl with no support
• Skip it if you use Linux or want a web app, as it's Windows and Mac only
• Tight if you work on several computers, as Professional is licensed per PC, per year, in euros

SiteOne Crawler

• It runs on your own computer or server; there is no hosted crawler, and emailed reports need your own SMTP server.
• The AI assistant uses your own API key or local model, so any LLM charges come from that provider.
• Pages built by JavaScript are crawled only in the optional browser mode, which renders them in Chromium.
• The desktop app is downloaded from the project's links; its page says it is not yet in the Mac App Store or Microsoft Store.

Visual SEO Studio

• The Community Edition stops at 500 pages per crawl and includes no technical support.
• Professional is priced in euros only and is licensed per year for one PC.
• The latest version on the download page, 2.5.3, is dated February 2023.
• There is no Linux or web version.

SiteOne Crawler

Audit report and quality score

Each crawl ends in a self-contained HTML report with a 0 to 10 score, weighted 25% security and 20% each for performance, SEO and accessibility.

Site-wide checks

Covers SEO and OpenGraph tags, headings, redirects and 404s, security headers, SSL/TLS certificates, caching headers, content types and DNS.

JavaScript rendering and screenshots

An optional browser mode renders each page in Chromium so single-page apps are crawled, and can capture every page as an image, GIF or MP4.

CI/CD quality gate

The --ci option fails a build when scores fall below set thresholds, with JUnit XML output and annotations for GitHub Actions.

Offline clone and Markdown export

Saves a static mirror of a whole site, assets included, or converts its pages to Markdown and an llms.txt file.

Optional AI assistant

With your own key for OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini, or a local model, adds per-page SEO rewrites, spelling checks and a site summary.

Visual SEO Studio

Site crawler

Follows internal links like a search spider, and in the Professional Edition can also crawl a list of URLs or the pages in an XML sitemap.

Reports and custom filters

Ready-made reports cover common SEO issues, and a query engine lets you filter crawl data your own way.

XML sitemap tools

A visual editor to pick which pages go in a sitemap, plus sitemap validation and, in Professional, sitemap audits.

hreflang and international checks

Checks hreflang annotations in bulk, supports Unicode URLs and IDN domains, and runs readability analysis in 4 languages.

robots.txt editor

A robots.txt viewer and editor with syntax highlighting and a syntax checker for several search engines.

Search engine data

The Professional Edition pulls in Google Search Console and Bing search traffic data and Moz link metrics.

SiteOne Crawler

• Free$0

  The desktop app and command-line crawler, run on your own computer, with free hosted links for sharing reports.

Visual SEO Studio

• Community€0

  For small sites and bloggers: up to 500 pages per crawl, 2 connections, broken links, meta data, hreflang and XML sitemap generation.

• Professional€149

  per year, per PC, plus VAT for EU consumers

  Up to 150,000 pages and 32 connections, URL-list crawls, sitemap audits, Search Console, Bing and Moz data, HTTP login and support.