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 | 180+ | 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, 180+ 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.
Pick a web-based tool when you want no install, no URL cap to start, and saved audit history you can run from anywhere, especially across several sites. Stay on Screaming Frog when you need its deepest crawl configuration and custom extraction and your sites fit your machine's RAM. Either way, always add Search Console for real Google data no crawler can show.
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.
Almost every switch comes down to one of three things: the 500-URL free cap, the desktop-only install that consumes your machine's RAM, and the absence of built-in run-over-run history. Naming which one is actually blocking you is the fastest way to pick a replacement, because a tool that fixes one may not fix the others.
A web-based, credit-priced crawler with stored audits addresses all three at once, which is why it is the most common destination for people leaving the free tier behind.
If the 500-URL cap is what stops you, Kalenux gives a free first full-site audit with no URL cap on the free tier. If it is the desktop install and local memory use, any web-based crawler removes that constraint entirely. Search Console is free too and worth having alongside whatever you pick, though it is reactive: it reports what Google has already crawled rather than crawling on demand.
Web-based crawlers like Kalenux run the crawl server-side, so there is nothing to install, no local memory ceiling on large sites, and you can start an audit from any device including a locked-down work laptop or a phone. They also tend to store each run, so tracking site health over time is built in rather than a manual export-and-compare exercise.
For technical auditing, Kalenux covers the same core ground: broken links, redirects, canonicals, hreflang, structured data, sitemaps, meta and indexability, plus real PageSpeed and saved history. Screaming Frog remains ahead on granular crawl configuration and custom extraction for power users. For most teams whose goal is to find issues, fix them and prove they stayed fixed, the web-based approach is simpler and cheaper.
Run an instant homepage check above, or sign up for a free full-site audit: 180+ technical checks plus PageSpeed, with history tracked over time.
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