Looking for some free or even paid but better alternatives to Screaming Frog? Then, here are the best Screaming Frog Alternatives gathering to favor you.
Mostly, the search engine optimization topic revolves only around non-technical terms. It’s like keyword, content, etc. You write quality content targeting a low search volume keyword though. Indeed, outreaching influencers in your niche and getting backlinks or promotions. Anyways, all these fall under non-technical aspects.
Remember, SEO isn’t only on-page and off-page optimization. You will have to get into something beyond keywords, content, backlinks or anything.
Even you do it periodically; strong technical groundwork will have a better chance of improving your search visibility.
We all know that Google is more seasoned. Still, if you can make search engine bots to understand your site architecture better, then they can crawl easily. Moreover, presenting content in such a way search engine bots like can result in better SERP ranking positions.
Are you unsure what those technical SEO aspects are? It includes proper URL structure, categorization, URL optimization, speed optimization, and so on. Among all, the site architecture and URL structure are the most crucial factors. By the way, tools like Screaming Frog can help you with this.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider for Website Crawling
Screaming Frog is a most trusted site crawler to crawl websites of any-sized. The tool is capable of analyzing the results in real-time. Indeed, it can uncover most of the technical factors that your website deserves to be perfect in. It includes redirects, broken links, content duplication, and even more.
As a whole, it can fetch your entire onsite but also technical elements, reviewing your URL structure. You may download Screaming Frog free tool and use it to crawl up to 500 URL’s. The tool has a great user interface and can process results so quick based on the website size.
Screaming Frog results also display the HTTP status code of each URL. With its extensive filtering options, you can sort URL’s with its length, non-ASCII URL’s at a single click, and so on. The tool can also enable you to generate XML sitemaps and robots.txt. Likewise, Screaming Frog has plenty of amazing features that every SEO’s would like to have.
Screaming Frog is absolutely an incredible crawling tool if you are trying to fix technical errors. And, making your website appeal better to the search engine bots. The SEO crawling tools I am including here are obviously popular and the most efficient tools to diagnose and treat crucial technical SEO mistakes.
But, Why Best Screaming Frog Alternatives?
Though, why it’s a point to search for Screaming Frog alternatives? The major downside is its price.
Although it has a free tool, with which you can crawl URL’s to identify broken links, redirects, redirects errors, generate XML sitemaps, and so on. But, this is not ultimate. Only paid Screaming Frog enables you to schedule crawling, save crawl results, custom extraction from the website coding, JS rendering, Google webmaster tools integration, etc.
Hence, it becomes obvious for online marketing agencies to go for its paid version. Think about spending around $170 every 12 months. It’s a big deal. If you are an agency paying already for other multiple tools, then it’s a burden.
Since other website audit tools come with lifetime access and unlimited resources claims for onetime payment. No sneaky renewals.
Table of Page Contents
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider for Website Crawling
- But, Why Best Screaming Frog Alternatives?
- Why Not Screaming Frog Free Alternatives?
- What if I am looking for Screaming Frog Alternative Linux?
- Top but also Best Screaming Frog Alternatives you must try
- SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor – #1 Screaming Frog Alternative Mac
- SEMRush – #2 Alternative to Screaming Frog
- Ahrefs – #3 Screaming Frog SEO Alternative
- Serpstat – #4 Screaming Frog Online Alternative
- MOZ Pro – #5 Screaming Frog Alternative Free
- Netpeak Spider – #6 Screaming Frog SEO Spider Alternative
- Xenu’s Link Sleuth – #7 Screaming Frog Open Source Alternative
- SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor – Expert’s Recommendation
- Final Take Away: Best SEO Screaming Frog Alternatives
Why Not Screaming Frog Free Alternatives?
Sure, you can also use some free tools to crawl and index your website pages. If you are an individual blogger who owns 1 or 2 niche blogs, the free alternative features will be enough. For agencies or expert bloggers who run multiple blogs will have higher demands. They don’t like something restricting with numbers. In such cases, they have to opt for a premium website crawler.
What if I am looking for Screaming Frog Alternative Linux?
By nature, few tools support multiple operating systems like Windows, Mac, and Linux. And, rest may not be. Probably, most of the tools work on Windows. Only the catch will be for Mac and Linux users. So, you will have to precisely your Screaming Frog alternative. SEO PowerSuite is an ultimate tool that is compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Linux.
Altogether, you are now, here looking for the best alternatives to Screaming Frog. Each tool will have its own ups and downs. I am not going to nudge you any particular Screaming Frog alternative.
Still, which specific tool can get you amazing features and maximum benefits for the money you are investing in? Understanding that, you can go with your best Screaming Frog alternatives.
Top but also Best Screaming Frog Alternatives you must try
To astonish you, I include one or two free Screaming Frog alternatives too. It’s a fact that every SEO tool will have limitations offering partial functionalities or in any other forms.
Hence, I am sharing you multiple alternatives to Screaming Frog. You will find it easy to compare and pick your best website crawling tool. Because investing money in great tools can save you enough time and efforts.
| Screaming Frog Alternatives | Type | Free Trial | Version | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEO Powersuite Website Auditor | Free/Premium | 14 Days | Desktop | Access Now |
| SEMrush | Free/Premium | 14 Days | Web | Access Now |
| Ahrefs | Premium | 7 Days | Web | Access Now |
| Serpstat | Free/Premium | 7 Days | Web | Access Now |
| MOZ Pro | Free/Premium | 30 Days | Web | Access Now |
| NetSpeak Spider | Premium | 14 Days | Web | Access Now |
| Xenu's Link Sleuth | Free | Forever | Desktop | Access Now |
SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor – #1 Screaming Frog Alternative Mac
Here is your first, of course, the best alternative to Screaming Frog. SEO PowerSuite is the combination of four different tools to manage your entire SEO tasks. Website Auditor is one of its popular website auditing tool that comes with incredible features. You can use this tool on any OS like Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Its SEO spider can crawl your pages like search engines bots can do. The tool can go deeper to dig your entire pages diligently auditing every element like HTML, JS, CSS, Flash, Videos, images, etc. It also enables you to run through the pages as per your instructions in the robots.txt file. Hence, you can crawl the pages that search engines can see.
Like other popular site audit tools, it has options to generate an XML sitemap and robots.txt files and also comprehensive on-page analysis.
Above all, in-app content optimization allows you to create or edit your meta and title tags and preview the snippets right there. Moreover, you can have fabulous custom but white label reports that are easily shareable. You can schedule your audits and have it deliver the reports automatically to your clients as a direct link or attachment.
How would Website Auditor be better than Screaming Frog?
I am comparing Website Auditor vs Screaming Frog on data representation, visual richness, TF-IDF features, etc. Website Auditor wins over Screaming Frog.
Below are its set of features other than simply identifying broken links or redirect issues, or generating sitemaps and robots.txt.
SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor Features & Highlights
- Spots almost entire issues with URL and coding related factors
- Checks for HTTP status code and analyze the cause, if any loading delays
- Handles page titles, meta tags, description uniqueness or missing related issues
- Provides you deep control over the website’s link structure
- Keeps monitoring your ranking factors, social media popularity, etc
- Offers unique suggestions to optimize your content of specific pages
- Gets your optimization advice and tips specifically for different search engines
- Search engine view report to let you know how search engines can see your page
Pros
- Available for all OS: Windows, Linux, and iOS
- The multilingual tool that works with 500+ search engines
- Allows you to work with proxies with necessary settings
- One-time payment, no yearly renewals
- Interface color schemes to choose between
- Has customizable workspace filters to fetch quick and appropriate results
Cons
- Free version comes with limitations to use only 500 URL’s
- Seems costlier, but remember it’s a onetime payment whereas other tools claims for yearly renewals
SEMRush – #2 Alternative to Screaming Frog
Of course, SEMRush is a popular SEO tool not only for expert digital marketers but also for beginners. The great thing about SEMRush is its excellence in researching keywords and PPC analysis. I regret pinpointing only these two features.
Other than this, SEMRush is also powerful for backlink analysis, content optimization, ranking position tracking, and website audit. It can either be yours or your competitor’s.
While talking about the SEMRush site audit tool, I like one of its extensive features. It is nothing but the tool can prioritize the issues and decide which is to fix first. Then, the tool checks for HTTPs errors to ensure your website’s security.
Along with that, SEMRush has almost all the typical features that other site audit tool offers. It includes fixing broken images, alt texts, content duplication, error pages with proper redirects, and so on. But the tool can get you prompt and reliable results.
And, it is a fact that SEO needs consistent monitoring and upgrading. For which, this tool enables to schedule crawling and check how your SEO efforts are paying you off. Probably, your number of issues must be coming down.
Furthermore, let’s explore its other features in auditing, analyzing, and fixing the mistakes that stop your SEO boost.
SEMRush Site Audit Tool Features & Highlights
- Checks for more than 120 factors related issues from surface level to critical
- Comprehensive crawlability and indexability resulting in HTTP code status, page crawl depth, etc.
- Spots HTTPs implementation issues like security certificate, and website architecture issues
- Identifies hreflang related issues, conflicts with the page coding, missing hreflang values
- Allows to keep track of fixed errors and if any new issues
- Can schedule and get notifications once audit completes and reports automatically
Pros
- Helps to monitor website health to stay away from penalties
- Also detects AMP implementation and Hreflang issues
- More filter options while reporting as you need
- Simple to use interface even beginners would love
- Both on-demand and autopilot crawling possible
Cons
- No free version available
- You cannot buy the SEMRush site audit tool separately
Ahrefs – #3 Screaming Frog SEO Alternative
Wherever I talk about Ahrefs, I would love to mention about its data freshness. Any of its tool you use, the results will be updated. Even you won’t find those results in any other SEO tools. Ahrefs is predominant in areas like competitor analysis, backlink audit, and for strategic content promotions.
Let’s get into its site audit features. Ahrefs site audit is a cloud-based crawler that scans your entire URL’s in the website you feed. The tool can identify every issue that is against SEO guidelines.
The tool has user-friendly GUI, and the variety of visual reports can help you understand the results much better. Despite other site audit tools, Ahrefs don’t take days to complete crawling. It’s just a matter of hours depending on your website size.
Above all, Ahrefs would be a predominant tool to perform a technical SEO audit. Below are the extensive features by Ahrefs site audit.
Ahrefs Site Explorer Features & Highlights
- Checks for https canonical issues, if your website has multiple versions
- Identifies and suggests fixing indexation issues
- Makes sure to have basic on-page SEO factors proper
- Lets you know the pages with thin content or content duplication
- Displays the slow loading pages with TTFB and loading time
- Checks for structured data errors
- Keeps an eye on your backlink profile, especially linked domains
- Like any other tool, find the broken links or broken redirects
- Conducts a full content audit and lets you know the content gap
Pros
- Quick and fresh results ever
- More metrics and filters for appropriate data analysis
- Helps you to optimize your content as well
- Neat GUI and dashboard with more visualizations
- Strategic site audit tool for comprehensive site crawling
Cons
- No free tool available
- Obviously expensive for beginners
Serpstat – #4 Screaming Frog Online Alternative
It is a powerful and also a get growing SEO tool with built-in features to handle your SEO tasks. Serpstat site audit module can help you fix the issues that will hurt your SERP ranking. The analysis results you get can let you know how efficient your website elements are.
Are you unsure about the SEO efforts you put in? Run thorough site audits at regular intervals and makes sure.
Since Serpstat helps you to compare your audit results with your previous audit forms. You may also schedule your site crawls, and results will be on a priority basis. As a unique point, this tool displays SDO Score Dynamics to let you know the changes in the audit history. With which, you can easily examine your website loopholes or improvement.
Serpstat on-page audit Features and highlights
- Visual data to monitor website elements and related issues
- Compares audit results with historical data for analysis
- Displays Score Dynamics to tell the change in the audit results over time
- Inspects simple to complex on-page technical issues like invalid heading nesting
- Checks for server parameters like SSL, and canonical terms
- Ensures fast loading speed by analyzing browser caching, fonts readability, etc
Pros
- Easy-to-use design with necessary filter options
- Option to segment results based on the parameters
- Spots over 52 types of errors and threats
- Increased crawling speed scanning more than 20 pages per second
- Free demo is available to get hands-on with the tool
Cons
- Like other tools, no free version (SEO PowerSuite is unique always)
- Mostly talks about the on-page issues
MOZ Pro – #5 Screaming Frog Alternative Free
For any SEO tasks you have ahead, MOZ Pro will get you solutions. Being a popular SEO tool not only highlights the issues but also helps you to learn and fix them instantly. By which, it assists you to manage your website’s health and improve the ability to achieve a better ranking.
As an overview the dashboard can show the new issues, the number of pages crawled, serious issues to fix it quickly, whole issues, etc. MOZ can run site crawls faster even the larger websites and fetches the results. The pictographic representations with colorful charts can help better understanding the level of criticalness.
You can also flag issues to fix it instantly, or to ignore or to do it later. You may request instant recrawl as soon as you fix the critical issues.
MOZ Pro Features and Highlights
- Checks from typical to more complex issues of the entire website, not only on-page
- Auto-crawl and send you notifications if any new issues arise
- Option to flag issues based on how critical it is
- More pictographic reports for detailed understanding
- Issues prioritization and suggestions to fix them at a shot
- Instant recrawl to check the website health once fixing critical mistakes
Pros
- 30-day free trial to get hands-on with the features
- A comprehensive tool for regular website audits
- Autopilot site crawls to get noticed with new issues
- Instructions to learn and fix the errors in a better way
Cons
- Bit costlier for start-ups
- Does not deals much about links
Netpeak Spider – #6 Screaming Frog SEO Spider Alternative
It is a desktop tool to crawl any website as search engines do. The tool can detect key SEO issues that influence your website performance and ranking. Unfortunately, you can only use this tool only on Windows OS. For Mac OS and Linux users, count down the days to have it launched. The tool will have a lucrative dashboard with color highlights to view your audit results clearly.
You may use this personal crawler for a fast and comprehensive technical website audit with no hesitation. Though it might not be a unique tool still, a better choice for SEO site audit. To get a rough idea on the tool and its features, you may have a try with its trial version. Make a note that no credit card details required to do so.
Netpeak Spider Features and Highlights
- Checks for more than 50 on page parameters in the crawled pages
- Can spot even 60+ variants of website issues
- Analyze both internal and external links that your every page has
- Helps you to avoid content duplication and typical on-page errors
- Instructs you to avoid canonical, robots.txt issues
- Option to set custom rules to enable crawling the entire website or specific part
Pros
- Uncovers entire parametric issues that influence your website health
- Typical tool for the comprehensive site audit
- Options available to export your audit reports
- Digs deeper into the site structure and run checks
Cons
- Lacks some strategic visual or illustrative displays of crawl results
- Being a desktop software, space intensive (it’s not a big issue anyway)
- It seems you cannot integrate with Google webmaster tools
Xenu’s Link Sleuth – #7 Screaming Frog Open Source Alternative
The best free alternative to Screaming Frog. But, I would not say it as a full-fledged solution to your site audit needs. This is just a desktop application to review your broken links. Though it is available for free, the tool is ultimately fast in fetching results. The good thing is, the tool keeps on upgrading. It’s from a simple broken link checker to a perfect SEO site audit tool.
The tool can identify link inconsistencies, testing crawl paths, inbound and outbound link errors, on-page optimization lags and even more. You can have simple but precise reports. Being a free Screaming Frog alternative, the features are limited. You cannot rely on if looking for a full-suite site audit tool.
SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor – Expert’s Recommendation
For a while, you can also try SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor free version to get started. It comes with limited features and resources though. As a free tool, SEO PowerSuite’s website auditor does not make a big difference. Since, like Screaming Frog, it also limits you to crawl only 500 URL.
If you are seriously trying to optimize your website in every technical aspect, then you go for its paid versions. It’s all about a one-time payment. Unlike other website audit tools, Link Assistant’s Website Auditor tool performs a thorough technical audit in fetching every less-noticed issues. It includes mobile usability, internal linking errors, heavy pages and scripts, cache validation errors, etc. Also, you will also get the errors with the list of pages it affects, and how to fix instructions.
Final Take Away: Best SEO Screaming Frog Alternatives
Certainly, site auditing is a kind of maximizing your SEO efforts to succeed online. To the minimum, you will have to run mini-site audits every month and a thorough audit once in a quarter. To get started with, you may use a free site crawler.
Screaming Frog (crawls up to 500 URLs) to examine the current SEO status of your website. It includes anything between typical title tags to mobile indexability.
Also, you may have a try with these free and paid alternatives to Screaming Frog for extensive resources and features. Also, you don’t require waiting for days to see the audit results. There are prompt technical SEO audit tools or site crawlers out there to fetch your reports in a few hours.
As we have seen above, site architecture and URL structure have a greater influence on your website performance. Since search engines will find it simpler to index your pages if it is organized in such away. Hence, I would insist you perform site audits at regular intervals. And, manage your website’s health fixing the technical SEO issues instantly.
Now, let me know how often you perform a technical SEO audit? Indeed, which is the site crawling tool you use? Have you tried Screaming Frog or SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor or any other tools mentioned above?
Thanks for sharing such a nice information, very useful for developers & Bloggers, keep posting this kind of article.
Elle,
Always there must be a better choice than anything. It’s up to each individual to opt for the most appropriate solutions based on the specific needs. Here is a list of Black Friday & Cyber Monday discounts on some of the popular SEO tools. Make use of it if you are about to buy your favorite SEO tool.