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 |
Looking for a Screaming Frog alternative? Screaming Frog is the deeper crawler for large sites and stays the right tool for crawling tens of thousands of URLs. Scanverra is a browser-based Screaming Frog alternative for teams who want an audit with performance, accessibility, security and fixes without installing desktop software; its SEO crawl covers up to 25 pages per scan.
Where Screaming Frog SEO Spider 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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