SEO crawlers · Updated August 2026
Screaming Frog vs Sitebulb Which SEO crawler should you run in 2026?
A side-by-side look at Screaming Frog and Sitebulb, 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.
Screaming Frog 
Sitebulb 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.
Screaming Frog Industry standard
Screaming Frog is the desktop default: 300+ issue checks, the deepest configuration options here, and a free tier that crawls 500 URLs with no sign-up.
- Checks for over 300 SEO issues, warnings and opportunities
- Free tier crawls 500 URLs with no sign-up or email capture
- Custom extraction with XPath, CSS Path, regex and custom JavaScript
- Its site names Apple, Google, Disney, Amazon and NASA as users
Sitebulb Desktop and cloud
Sitebulb is the only one here that sells both a desktop app and a cloud crawler, and the only one that pre-prioritises its 300+ checks into ranked Hints.
- Hints rank every issue Critical, High, Medium or Low with an explanation
- Desktop and Cloud are the same tool, so you can move up without switching
- JavaScript crawling is included on every plan at no extra cost
- Audit comparison tracks every datapoint between two crawls
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 Screaming Frog and Sitebulb 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 |
Screaming Frog
|
Sitebulb
|
|---|---|---|
| Pricing & licensing | ||
| Free version | Partial. 500 URL crawl limit | Partial. 14-day trial only |
| Entry paid price | $279/yr (£199) | $180/yr Lite |
| What one licence covers | 1 user, per year | 1 user; extras from $115.60/yr |
| Volume discount | Supported. Down to £169 at 20+ licences | Partial. 15% off yearly plans |
| Money-back or trial terms | Partial. Free version, no refund policy stated | Supported. 14 days free, no card, cancel anytime |
| Crawl credits | Supported. None | Supported. None — stated explicitly |
| Open source licence | Not available. Proprietary | Not available. Proprietary |
| Crawling & scale | ||
| Documented URL ceiling | Unlimited, bounded by hardware | 500k desktop, 10M cloud |
| JavaScript rendering | Supported. Chromium WRS, paid only | Supported. Evergreen Chromium, all plans |
| Cloud crawling | Not available. Desktop only | Supported. Sitebulb Cloud |
| Runs without tying up your machine | Not available. Runs locally | Partial. Cloud plans only |
| Concurrent crawls | Not available. Not stated | Partial. Cloud MEDIUM and above |
| Scheduled or recurring crawls | Supported. Scheduling + command line | Supported. Pro and Cloud |
| Crawl configuration depth | Supported. Paid unlocks full configuration | Supported. Advanced configuration on Pro |
| Custom user agent & headers | Supported. Any header, custom UA | Partial. Not detailed on site |
| Forms-based authentication | Supported. Paid only | Not available. Not stated |
| Analysis & reporting | ||
| Issue checks documented | 300+ | 300+ Hints on Pro, 100+ on Lite |
| Issues pre-prioritised for you | Partial. Type and estimated priority per issue | Supported. Critical/High/Medium/Low Hints |
| Crawl comparison over time | Supported. Crawl comparison + URL mapping | Supported. Audit comparison + trendlines |
| Staging vs production comparison | Supported. Advanced URL mapping | Not available. Not stated |
| PDF client reports | Not available. Not stated | Supported. Customised PDF reports on Pro |
| Site architecture visualisations | Supported. Force-directed and tree graphs | Supported. Crawl maps, charts, timelines |
| Structured data validation | Supported. Schema.org + Google rich results | Supported. Structured data validator |
| Accessibility auditing | Supported. AXE ruleset, WCAG | Supported. Accessibility report |
| Duplicate & near-duplicate content | Supported. md5, near-duplicate, vector embeddings | Supported. Duplicate content report |
| Spelling & grammar checks | Supported. 25+ languages | Partial. Spell checker, Pro only |
| Log file analysis | Partial. Separate product, £99/yr | Not available. Not stated |
| Markdown extraction for LLMs | Partial. Documented via custom extraction | Not available. Not stated |
| Export formats | Spreadsheet export, Google Sheets | CSV, PDF, Google Sheets |
| Integrations & automation | ||
| Google Search Console | Supported. Search Analytics + URL Inspection | Supported. Search Traffic report |
| Google Analytics | Supported. User and conversion data in-crawl | Supported. GA4 engagement data |
| PageSpeed Insights | Supported. Lighthouse + CrUX at scale | Supported. Performance report via Chromium |
| Looker Studio / Data Studio | Supported. Looker Studio crawl report | Supported. Live connector on Cloud |
| Third-party link metrics | Supported. Majestic, Ahrefs, Moz | Not available. Not stated |
| AI model integration | Supported. OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama, Anthropic | Partial. MCP listed as coming soon |
| Public API | Partial. Command line automation, no API | Not available. Not stated |
| Extensible with your own code | Partial. Custom JavaScript during a crawl | Not available. Not stated |
| Platform & team | ||
| Runs on | Windows, macOS, Linux | Windows, macOS, or browser |
| Team collaboration on one crawl | Not available. Single desktop instance | Supported. Shared workspace on Cloud |
| Data stays on your infrastructure | Supported. Desktop, local storage | Partial. Desktop yes, Cloud is vendor-hosted |
| Vendor support | Supported. Free technical support, free and paid | Supported. Support from the team that built it |
| Training & education material | Supported. User guide, tutorials, paid training | Supported. Masterclasses, Hint explanations, guides |
| Product maturity | SEO Spider v24, released May 2026 | Launched 2017 |
Pricing
What a year of crawling costs
Entry pricing reads as Screaming Frog at $279/yr, Sitebulb at $180/yr.
Screaming Frog and Sitebulb charge per user per year, so a five-person team pays five times. Screaming Frog discounts to £169 per licence at 20 or more. Sitebulb adds users to a Pro plan from $115.60 a year each, and takes 15% off yearly billing.
Edge: Sitebulb on price
Scale
How big a site each one can finish
On documented ceilings: Screaming Frog unlimited*, Sitebulb 500,000.
Screaming Frog's paid limit is unlimited in principle but bounded by the memory and disk on your machine; it uses a hybrid storage engine that writes to disk for large crawls. Sitebulb sets a 500,000 URL default on Pro, raisable to 2 million with a warning about your hardware, and moves to 10 million per audit on Cloud where the crawl runs on its servers.
Edge: Screaming Frog on documented scale
Control
Who owns the tool and where the data sits
Neither Screaming Frog and Sitebulb is open source. Both are proprietary products you licence rather than own.
Screaming Frog and Sitebulb are proprietary. Screaming Frog runs entirely on your desktop, so the data stays local even though the code is closed. Sitebulb Desktop is the same — local data, closed code — while Sitebulb Cloud stores your audits on its servers in exchange for team access and crawls that run without your machine. Both include a vendor support channel in the price, which the open-source options do not.
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.
Screaming Frog - 500 URL crawl limit
- No sign-up or email capture
- No saving crawls, JavaScript rendering, custom extraction or API integrations
- £199/yr in GBP, per licence per user
- Unlimited crawl limit, bounded by memory and storage
- Full configuration, scheduling and all integrations
- Licence lasts 1 year, then renews
- £189 per licence per year
- £179 per licence per year
- £169 per licence per year
- Sold separately from the SEO Spider
- Free to 1,000 log events and 1 project
Sitebulb - 14 days, equivalent to Pro
- No credit card required
- 1 user, $18/month billed monthly
- 10,000 URLs per audit
- 100+ Hints, JavaScript crawling, GA/GSC/Sheets, crawl maps
- 1 user, $42/month billed monthly
- 500,000 URLs per audit, raisable to 2 million
- 300+ Hints, advanced configuration, audit comparisons
- Scheduled audits and customised PDF reports
- Extra users from $115.60/yr
- $125/month, 2 users
- 50,000 URLs per month, 50,000 per audit
- Unlimited projects, recurring audits
- 5 users, includes desktop licences
- 1 million URLs per month, 250,000 per audit
- 10 users, includes desktop licences
- 2.5 million URLs per month, 1 million per audit
- Concurrent crawling
Prices verified 16 August 2026. See vendor sites for current pricing.
Decision guide
Who should choose which
Choose Screaming Frog if…
- You want the tool most SEO documentation and tutorials assume
- Custom extraction and custom JavaScript during a crawl are part of your workflow
- You need AI prompts against crawled pages via OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama or Anthropic
- Link metrics from Majestic, Ahrefs or Moz should flow into the crawl
Choose Sitebulb if…
- You report to clients and want copy-pasteable issue explanations and PDF reports
- You want prioritisation done for you rather than sorting a spreadsheet
- Your team needs to work from the same crawl data at the same time
- You expect to outgrow a desktop machine and want a cloud path that is not a re-platform
Sitebulb is the cheaper way in at $180/yr, but the deciding question is what you are auditing. Both charge per seat per year, so the real cost scales with the size of your team, not the size of the sites you crawl.
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 Screaming Frog and Sitebulb is free?
Screaming Frog ships a free version that crawls 500 URLs with no sign-up, but holds back saving crawls, JavaScript rendering, custom extraction and the API integrations for paid licences. Sitebulb has no free tier — it offers a 14-day Pro-equivalent trial with no credit card, after which Lite starts at $180 a year.
Which one handles the biggest sites?
Screaming Frog unlimited*, Sitebulb 500,000. Sitebulb Cloud is the only one here that crawls at scale on someone else's servers, up to 10 million URLs per audit. 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?
Screaming Frog renders with an integrated Chromium WRS, but only on a paid licence. Sitebulb uses an Evergreen Chromium engine and includes rendering on every plan at no extra cost.
Can a team share one crawl?
Sitebulb Cloud puts audits in a shared workspace, so anyone on the team can open the same crawl with the same settings. Screaming Frog is a single desktop instance per licence, and licences are per user, so sharing means exporting.
Which integrates with Google Search Console and Analytics?
Screaming Frog connects to the Search Analytics and URL Inspection APIs plus Google Analytics and PageSpeed Insights, and pulls link metrics from Majestic, Ahrefs and Moz. Sitebulb connects Search Console, GA4, Google Sheets and Data Studio, and lists an MCP integration as coming soon.
What happens when something breaks?
Screaming Frog offers free technical support on both the free and paid versions. Sitebulb says support comes from the team that built the tool, rather than account management.