Screaming Frog is a great desktop crawler, but the 500-URL free cap, the local RAM it needs on big sites, and the lack of saved history send a lot of people looking. Here are the alternatives that solve each of those, free and paid, compared honestly.
Instant, free, no install, no signup - we check your homepage on the spot.
The free version stops at 500 URLs. Past that you need the annual licence, even for an occasional larger audit.
It runs on your machine, so big crawls eat local memory and tie up your computer. There is nothing to run from a phone or a locked-down work laptop.
Each crawl is a fresh export. Tracking whether you actually fixed things run-over-run is manual.
| Kalenux SEO Audit | Screaming Frog | Search Console | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs where | Web app (server-side crawl) | Desktop app (local RAM) | Web app |
| Free tier | Free first full-site audit, no URL cap | Free to 500 URLs | Free |
| On-demand crawl | Yes | Yes | No (reactive) |
| Site-wide technical checks | 80+ | Extensive | Limited |
| Real PageSpeed / CWV | Yes | Via integration | Yes (field data) |
| Health tracking over time | Yes, run-over-run | Manual | Partial |
| Paid pricing | $9-49 one-time, never expires | ~£199 / year | Free |
| Install needed | No | Yes | No |
The closest like-for-like swap if your goal is to find and fix technical issues without the cap or the install. Server-side crawl, 80+ checks, real PageSpeed, and saved history so you can prove what you fixed. Free first full-site audit, then $9 to $49 one-time, no subscription. (This is our tool; we describe it as plainly as the rest.)Run a free audit or see the full comparison.
Not a crawler, but a free, authoritative source of how Google sees your site: indexing status, coverage errors and Core Web Vitals at scale. Use it alongside any crawler. Limit: it reports what Google already crawled, on a delay, and will not crawl on demand.
There are other desktop SEO spiders with similar configurability. They solve the licence-cost question but keep the same trade-off you may be trying to escape: a local install bound by your machine's RAM, and crawls that live on one computer.
Their site-audit modules crawl your site and add keyword and backlink data, but at $100 to $250-plus per month. Overkill if you only need technical auditing, and a recurring bill rather than a one-time cost.
You want no install, no URL cap to start, audits you can run from anywhere, and saved history to track fixes, especially across multiple sites.
You need its deepest crawl configuration and custom extraction, you are comfortable with the licence, and your sites fit your machine's RAM.
It is free and shows real Google data no crawler can. Use it with whichever crawler you choose.
It depends on what bothers you about it. For the 500-URL cap, Kalenux gives a free first full-site audit with no URL cap on the free tier. For the desktop install and RAM use, any web-based crawler removes that. Search Console is also free, if reactive.
Yes. Web-based crawlers like Kalenux run the crawl on a server, so there is nothing to install, no local memory limit, and you can audit from any device. They also tend to store history so you can track site health over time.
The three common reasons are the 500-URL free cap, the desktop-only install that consumes local RAM, and the lack of built-in run-over-run history. A web-based, credit-priced tool with stored audits solves all three.
For technical auditing it covers the same core ground plus real PageSpeed and saved history. Screaming Frog offers more granular crawl configuration for power users. For most teams that mainly want to find, fix and track issues, the web-based approach is simpler and cheaper.
Run an instant homepage check above, or sign up for a free full-site audit: 80+ technical checks plus PageSpeed, with history tracked over time.
Start a free audit