# Alternatives to Screaming Frog

The desktop site crawler standard.

Screaming Frog ranks #9 of 10 in SEO tools, with an Alt Score of 42. It is proprietary, freemium from £199/year and available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 10 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/screaming-frog/
Category: SEO tools

## Where Screaming Frog stands out

- **Free tier / trial** — 4 of 10 apps with a verified answer have this
- **Price per seat** — 5 of 10 apps with a verified answer have this

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: SEO professionals, agencies, and in-house marketers who need to perform technical and on-page SEO audits of websites, from small sites to large enterprise domains.
- **What you get**: A desktop crawler (Windows, macOS, Linux) that identifies broken links, server errors, and redirect chains, flags duplicate content and metadata issues (titles, descriptions, headings), and audits robots.txt, canonicals, hreflang, and structured data. It renders JavaScript to crawl dynamic sites (React, Angular, Vue), lets you extract custom data via XPath/CSS/regex, and integrates with Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights. A free version is capped at 500 URLs; a paid license removes the limit and unlocks the full feature set.
- **How it works**: You enter a starting URL and the Spider crawls the site breadth-first, following links like a search engine bot, while collecting on-page and technical data for each URL it discovers. Results appear in a tabbed interface for filtering and review, and can be exported to spreadsheets or visualized as site architecture diagrams for reporting.

## Profile

- **License**: Proprietary (verified 2026-07-11)
- **Pricing model**: Freemium (verified 2026-07-11)
- **Starts at**: £199/year (verified 2026-07-11)
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux
- **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-11)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [Ahrefs](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/ahrefs.md) | 91 | Proprietary | Web |
| 2 | [Moz](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/moz.md) | 91 | Proprietary | Web |
| 3 | [SE Ranking](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/se-ranking.md) | 91 | Proprietary | ? |
| 4 | [Semrush](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/semrush.md) | 91 | Proprietary | Web |
| 5 | [Serpstat](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/serpstat.md) | 82 | Proprietary | Web |
| 6 | [Mangools](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/mangools.md) | 68 | Proprietary | Web |
| 7 | [Ubersuggest](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/ubersuggest.md) | 68 | Proprietary | Web |
| 8 | [SpyFu](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/spyfu.md) | 55 | Proprietary | Web |
| 9 | [Majestic](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/majestic.md) | 37 | Proprietary | Web |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| SEO tools checklist | Screaming Frog | Ahrefs | Moz | SE Ranking | Semrush | Serpstat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Freemium | Subscription | Subscription | Subscription | Subscription | Freemium |
| Starts at | £199/year | $29/month | $49/month | $129/month | $139/mo | $50/month |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux | Web | Web | ? | Web | Web |
| Rank tracking | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Backlink index size | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Keyword research | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Site audit crawler | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Content optimization | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Local SEO | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| API access | No | Partial | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Price per seat | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
| Free tier / trial | Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes |
| SERP features tracking | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |

## Sources

Sources for Screaming Frog. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **Pricing model**: Freemium — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/general/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is free to download and use for crawling up to 500 URLs at a time.”
- **License**: Proprietary — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/general/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “For £199 a year you can buy a licence, which removes the 500 URL crawl limit.”
- **Starts at**: £199/year — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/general/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “For £199 a year you can buy a licence, which removes the 500 URL crawl limit.”
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “The industry leading website crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux, trusted by thousands of SEOs and agencies worldwide for technical SEO site audits.”
- **Status**: active — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/blog/seo-spider-22/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “We're delighted to announce Screaming Frog SEO Spider version 22.0, codenamed internally as 'knee-deep'.”
- **Rank tracking**: No — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “The industry leading website crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux, trusted by thousands of SEOs and agencies worldwide for technical SEO site audits.”
- **Backlink index size**: No — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/blog/11-little-known-features/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “You can connect to the Majestic, Ahrefs or Moz APIs and pull in link data for URLs in a crawl though (like the number of LRD they have etc).”
- **Keyword research**: No — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “The industry leading website crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux, trusted by thousands of SEOs and agencies worldwide for technical SEO site audits.”
- **Site audit crawler**: Yes — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “The industry leading website crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux, trusted by thousands of SEOs and agencies worldwide for technical SEO site audits.”
- **Content optimization**: Partial — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/tabs/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “word count, readability, duplicate and near duplicate content, and spelling and grammar errors.”
- **Local SEO**: No — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “The industry leading website crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux, trusted by thousands of SEOs and agencies worldwide for technical SEO site audits.”
- **API access**: No — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/configuration/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “You can connect to the GA4 API and pull in data directly during a crawl.”
- **Price per seat**: Yes — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/pricing/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “Licences are per user. 2 users will require 2 individual licences.”
- **Free tier / trial**: Yes — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/general/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is free to download and use for crawling up to 500 URLs at a time.”
- **SERP features tracking**: No — <https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/> (verified 2026-07-11)
  - Quote: “The industry leading website crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux, trusted by thousands of SEOs and agencies worldwide for technical SEO site audits.”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/