SEO crawlers · Updated August 2026
LibreCrawl vs Deepcrawl Which SEO crawler should you run in 2026?
A side-by-side look at LibreCrawl and Deepcrawl, built only from what each tool publishes on its own site. Pricing, crawl limits and feature availability are quoted as documented — where a tool does not state something, we say so rather than guess.
LibreCrawl 
Deepcrawl The quick verdict
Both crawl. They are built for different jobs.
Every tool here fetches pages and reports on what it finds. What separates them is how much you pay per seat, how big a site each can finish, whether anyone else on your team can see the data, and whether you own the code.
LibreCrawl Free and open source
LibreCrawl is a free MIT-licensed crawler you host yourself, with unlimited URLs, Playwright rendering and a documented REST API.
- Free with no paid tier at all, under an MIT licence
- Unlimited URLs, with 1M+ crawls documented as stable
- Self-hosted, so crawl data never leaves your infrastructure
- A documented REST API and a drop-in JavaScript plugin system
Deepcrawl Agent toolkit
Deepcrawl is not an SEO auditing tool. It is a free, open-source extraction API that turns pages into clean markdown and link trees for AI agents.
- Built for agents: cleaned markdown, links tree and page metadata
- 100% free, no pricing, fully open source, and self-hostable
- Typed JavaScript/TypeScript SDK plus REST and RPC endpoints
- Its own docs warn it is early-stage and APIs may change
At a glance
The scoreboard
Highlighted cells mark the stronger option on that metric. No highlight means the values are not directly comparable, or it is a tie.
Feature matrix
The full comparison
Every row reflects what LibreCrawl and Deepcrawl document on their own websites, checked on 16 August 2026. "Not stated" means the tool does not publish the detail — not that the feature is definitely missing.
| Feature |
LibreCrawl
|
Deepcrawl
|
|---|---|---|
| Pricing & licensing | ||
| Free version | Supported. Entire tool is free | Supported. 100% free, no pricing |
| Entry paid price | No paid tier | No paid tier |
| What one licence covers | Unlimited users, self-hosted | Unlimited, self-hosted |
| Volume discount | Not available. Not applicable | Not available. Not applicable |
| Money-back or trial terms | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| Crawl credits | Supported. None | Supported. None |
| Open source licence | Supported. MIT | Supported. Open source, open code |
| Crawling & scale | ||
| Documented URL ceiling | Unlimited, 1M+ stable | Not stated |
| JavaScript rendering | Supported. Playwright, headless or headed | Not available. Listed as coming soon |
| Cloud crawling | Partial. Self-host it anywhere | Partial. Self-host on Cloudflare Workers |
| Runs without tying up your machine | Partial. If you host it elsewhere | Supported. Edge workers |
| Concurrent crawls | Supported. Multi-tenant sessions | Not available. Not stated |
| Scheduled or recurring crawls | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| Crawl configuration depth | Supported. Depth, delays, proxies, filters, robots | Partial. Endpoint options only |
| Custom user agent & headers | Supported. User agent, timeouts, proxy | Partial. Not detailed on site |
| Forms-based authentication | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| Analysis & reporting | ||
| Issue checks documented | Automated issue detection, count not stated | None — not an audit tool |
| Issues pre-prioritised for you | Partial. Issue detection and filtering | Not available. Not stated |
| Crawl comparison over time | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| Staging vs production comparison | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| PDF client reports | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| Site architecture visualisations | Partial. Graph visualisation endpoint | Partial. Links tree, not a visual |
| Structured data validation | Supported. Schema markup validation | Not available. Not stated |
| Accessibility auditing | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| Duplicate & near-duplicate content | Supported. Duplicate content detection | Not available. Not stated |
| Spelling & grammar checks | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| Log file analysis | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| Markdown extraction for LLMs | Not available. Not stated | Supported. Its core purpose |
| Export formats | CSV, JSON, XML, custom fields | JSON and markdown via API |
| Integrations & automation | ||
| Google Search Console | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| Google Analytics | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| PageSpeed Insights | Supported. PSI integration, own API key | Not available. Not stated |
| Looker Studio / Data Studio | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| Third-party link metrics | Not available. Not stated | Not available. Not stated |
| AI model integration | Not available. Not stated | Partial. Built for agent frameworks |
| Public API | Supported. 19 documented REST endpoints | Supported. REST + oRPC, typed SDK |
| Extensible with your own code | Supported. Drop-in JS plugin system | Supported. Fork it — open code |
| Platform & team | ||
| Runs on | Browser, self-hosted | API and browser playground |
| Team collaboration on one crawl | Partial. Isolated sessions per user | Not available. Not stated |
| Data stays on your infrastructure | Supported. Self-hosted | Supported. Self-hostable |
| Vendor support | Not available. Community, via GitHub | Not available. Community, via GitHub |
| Training & education material | Partial. README and API docs | Partial. Docs and quick start |
| Product maturity | 100 commits, MIT, active | Early-stage, APIs may change |
Pricing
Free, but not free of cost
Entry pricing reads as LibreCrawl at $0, Deepcrawl at $0.
Neither charges a licence fee. The cost shows up elsewhere: you provide the server, the updates and the person who fixes it when a crawl dies at 2am. That is a genuine trade, not a free lunch — but for a team that already runs infrastructure it is usually the cheaper one.
No clear edge: these are priced on different models
Scale
How big a site each one can finish
On documented ceilings: LibreCrawl unlimited, Deepcrawl not stated.
LibreCrawl documents 1M+ URL crawls as stable, using real-time memory profiling and virtual scrolling, and its crawler depth setting goes to 5 million. Deepcrawl publishes no URL ceiling — it is an extraction API rather than a whole-site auditor, and asynchronous durable crawling is still listed as coming soon.
Edge: LibreCrawl on documented scale
Control
Who owns the tool and where the data sits
LibreCrawl and Deepcrawl are open source and self-hosted, so the crawl data never leaves infrastructure you control and you can read or change the code.
The trade with LibreCrawl and Deepcrawl is support: neither offers a vendor support channel, so problems go to GitHub rather than a helpdesk.
Edge: depends on whether you want to own it or be supported
Pricing
What each plan actually costs
List prices as published by each tool. Screaming Frog and Sitebulb both quote in several currencies; the USD figures below come from their own currency switchers.
LibreCrawl - MIT licence, full source on GitHub
- Unlimited URLs and unlimited exports
- Self-hosted via Docker or Python 3.8+
- No paid tier and no paywalled features
- Guest: 3 crawls per 24 hours, IP-tracked
- User: unlimited crawls, settings and export
- Extra: JavaScript rendering, custom filters, custom CSS
- Admin: concurrency, memory limits, proxy configuration
- Every user gets admin tier
- No rate limits or tier restrictions
Deepcrawl - 100% free with no pricing, per its own site
- Fully open source, self-hostable
- Deploy the dashboard to Vercel and workers to Cloudflare
- npm i deepcrawl, or npm create deepcrawl to self-host
Prices verified 16 August 2026. See vendor sites for current pricing.
Decision guide
Who should choose which
Choose LibreCrawl if…
- Tool budget is the constraint and you can run Docker or Python
- Data governance means crawl data has to stay on your own servers
- You want to script against a crawler or extend it with your own tabs
- Several people need to crawl at once from one shared install
Choose Deepcrawl if…
- You are feeding page content to an LLM rather than auditing a site
- You want a Firecrawl alternative you can fork and deploy yourself
- A typed SDK inside an agent framework matters more than a UI
- You need a link tree of a domain before an agent browses it
Neither of these costs anything, so price is not the deciding factor — what matters is that LibreCrawl and Deepcrawl are built for different jobs. Pick on capability, not cost.
From the AngleOut team
The crawler is the easy part
A crawler hands you a list of issues. It will not tell you which of them are costing you rankings, or what to fix first given your traffic. If you want that turned into a prioritised plan, we can put one together.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Which of LibreCrawl and Deepcrawl is free?
LibreCrawl is entirely free under an MIT licence, with no paid tier. Deepcrawl describes itself as 100% free with no pricing, and fully open source.
Which one handles the biggest sites?
LibreCrawl unlimited, Deepcrawl not stated. The unlimited figures are honest but conditional: both are bounded in practice by the memory and disk of the machine doing the crawling.
Do they all render JavaScript?
LibreCrawl uses Playwright and supports both headless and headed modes. Deepcrawl does not render JavaScript today — its site lists headless browser rendering as coming soon, so anything injected client-side will be missed.
Can a team share one crawl?
LibreCrawl supports several concurrent users on one install, but each session is isolated with its own crawler and data. Deepcrawl has a dashboard with API key management, but documents no shared-crawl collaboration.
Which integrates with Google Search Console and Analytics?
LibreCrawl integrates PageSpeed Insights with your own Google API key, but documents no Search Console or Analytics connection. Deepcrawl documents no Google integrations — it is an extraction API, not a reporting tool.
What happens when something breaks?
LibreCrawl and Deepcrawl have no vendor support channel — you raise issues on GitHub and wait for a maintainer, or fix it yourself. Deepcrawl's own docs carry an active-development warning and say the APIs may change.