Scanverra vs. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Scanverra is a hosted website audit covering performance, SEO, accessibility, security, and AI-written fixes. Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop crawler for deep, unlimited-depth technical SEO data - free up to 500 URLs, then a one-time-purchase annual license.
| Feature | Scanverra | Screaming Frog SEO Spider |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest paid price One-time annual license, not a monthly subscription; USD varies with exchange rate | $19/mo (Pro) | £199/year (~$250/year) |
| Free tier & limits | Unlimited Website Audits, free forever | Free up to 500 URLs crawled, then requires a license |
| Deployment | Hosted - no install | Desktop app only (Windows/macOS/Linux) |
| Site-wide crawl depth Screaming Frog's unlimited crawl is bounded only by your machine's memory/storage | Bounded same-origin queue per scan (up to 25 links) | Unlimited-depth full-site crawl (paid license) |
| Lab performance data (Lighthouse-style) | Yes | No |
| Security header analysis | Yes | No |
| Accessibility/WCAG mapping | Yes | No |
| Repository/code scanning | Yes | No |
| AI-written, framework-aware fixes | Yes | No |
| Hosted dashboard / shareable reports | Yes | No |
Where Screaming Frog is the better choice
For a full, unlimited-depth crawl of an entire site's technical SEO data - every redirect chain, every duplicate title, every orphaned page across tens of thousands of URLs - Screaming Frog is built for exactly that in a way Scanverra deliberately isn't; Scanverra crawls a bounded same-origin queue per scan, not a whole sitemap. Some teams also simply prefer a one-time-purchase desktop license they own outright over another monthly subscription, and Screaming Frog's £199/year model is a real, valid reason to choose it for that alone.
Where Scanverra is the better choice
Screaming Frog requires a local install and has no performance lab scoring, no security header analysis, no accessibility mapping, and no AI-generated fixes - it's a crawler, not an audit-and-fix platform. Scanverra runs entirely in the browser with no install, turns around a single page's full audit in under a minute, and adds security, accessibility, and AI-fix scope well beyond what a pure crawler covers.
Frequently asked questions
Can Scanverra crawl an entire site the way Screaming Frog does?
No, and this is an honest gap, not marketing spin. Scanverra crawls a bounded same-origin queue per scan (up to 25 links), not an entire sitemap. Screaming Frog's paid license removes any URL cap, limited only by your machine's memory and storage - it's built specifically for full-site technical SEO crawls that Scanverra doesn't attempt.
Does Screaming Frog check page performance or Core Web Vitals?
It integrates with the PageSpeed Insights API for some performance data on a per-URL basis, but it doesn't run its own Lighthouse-style lab test or produce the kind of desktop/mobile performance score Scanverra does natively.
Do I need to install anything to use Scanverra?
No - Scanverra is fully hosted. Paste a URL and get results in the browser. Screaming Frog is a desktop application you install and run locally, which some teams prefer for offline use or data control, but it means no shareable hosted dashboard by default.
Is Screaming Frog's free version actually usable for a real audit?
For a site under 500 URLs, yes - the free version has the same crawl engine and most core features as the paid license, just capped at that URL count. Above that, you need the £199/year license to remove the cap.
Does Screaming Frog do security or accessibility auditing?
No - its scope is technical SEO crawl data (broken links, redirects, metadata, sitemaps, JS rendering). It has no HTTP security header analysis, no accessibility/WCAG mapping, and no AI-generated fixes.
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