Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a top strategy for achieving any form of success in the digital marketing scene.
According to statistics from HubSpot, SEO is a principal marketing strategy for 69% of marketers.
And when it comes to tools that can help out, very few can offer the reliability like Screaming Frog.
Screaming Frog is a leading SEO tool founded by three friends in 2010.
With remarkable features like the SEO Spider, the Log File Analyser, and many more., Screaming Frog offers advanced site audit, entire website crawling, and the identification of technical errors like broken links.
However, it is always a good idea to have options.
In this post, I’ll reveal the top paid and free alternatives to Screaming Frog.
Whether you’re not comfortable with the pricing, interface, or any of its features, these options can replace Screaming Frog while giving you excellent service.
Right, let’s get into it.
| Software | Pricing (starts from) | Free plan/trial? | Site Crawling | Error Detection | More Advanced Tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xenu’s Link Sleuth | Free | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Spotibo | $90/year | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Netpeak Spider | $20.80/month | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| SERPStat | £55/year | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| DeepCrawl | ➖ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Moz | $99/month | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| SEMRush | $119/month | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Ahrefs | $99/month | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
1. Xenu’s Link Sleuth
Xenu’s Link Sleuth is a free tool that has existed in the SEO crawler space for a while. And like Screaming Frog, it is available as a downloadable and lightweight computer software.
While it’s renowned for its ability to check broken internal links, it can do more than that.
Checking for broken links is relatively straightforward. Click on ‘Check URL’ on the File menu and input your homepage. Uncheck the ‘Check external links’ option below, set other options, and click on OK.
It generates a report with a couple of sections on broken links. You can also export the report to an Excel sheet by clicking on ‘Export to TAB separated file’ on the File menu.
Xenu’s Link Sleuth can reveal a whole lot of details in its report, and understanding the information can give you insights into numerous other aspects.
Other notable features:
- Find out if pages are missing meta descriptions or images missing alt texts.
- Generate XML sitemaps in quick, simple steps.
- Xenu also tells you about your site’s architecture with information like how many clicks it takes to get to each page.
- Easy to use interface and some excellent ways of displaying reports.
Pricing:
Xenu’s Link Sleuth is available for free download and uses on all Windows computers.
💬 The bottom line
Xenu’s Link Sleuth is a decent and completely free alternative to Screaming Frog. You should consider it if you do not mind the less fancy interface, as it certainly gets the job done.
2. Spotibo
Spotibo is another Screaming Frog alternative I love. Unlike the option above, it is a web app with a friendly user interface.
Its powerful SEO tool can analyze your website for anything that can affect optimum performance or search engine rankings. That includes error pages, duplicate pages, anchor text problems, missing alt texts, etc.
On-page analysis is not excluded as it can give helpful information about page titles, descriptions, headings, etc.
Other notable features:
- Spotibo lets you monitor your pages for any change in SEO parameters.
- Check and improve page speed on computers and mobile phones.
- Its Javascript rendering can crawl a website like search engines to give indexation reports.
Pricing:
Similar to Screaming Frog and Visual SEO Studio, Spotibo has a free plan that offers limited features and lets you crawl 300 pages for free. The main pricing plans start at just $90/year.
💬 The bottom line
While Spotibo is more suited for websites with few pages, I find it very useful to fix errors as well as a wide range of other page issues, like audit redirect, international SEO settings, canonization, etc.
3. Netpeak Spider
Netpeak Spider is another desktop program whose website audit technology crawls pages like search engines.
This tool is so powerful that it can detect over 100 issues on your website, from broken links to duplicate pages, missing descriptions, and heading problems.
What makes the report even more valuable is the data segmentation features. This lets you adjust the reports to get more insights about crucial aspects.
And if that doesn’t do it for you, you can export reports to Google Sheets, Drive, search console, or Yandex.Metrica.
Other notable features:
- Integration with tools like Yandex and Google Analytics.
- Netpeak Spider’s site scraping lets you extract essential information like emails and phone numbers from websites.
- It can also perform more advanced functions like source code analysis, sitemap generation, multi-domain check, spell checking, etc.
Pricing:
In addition to Netpeak Spider’s free version, other pricing plans include Lite starting at $20.80, Pro at $31.20, and Business plan at $55.20.
💬 The bottom line
Apart from the technical audits and page crawling, this tool brings other valuable features. However, another part where it thrives so well is in its reporting. You should use this option if you need to extract essential information from pages.
4. SERPStat
SERPStat is replete with several tools that make it an excellent Screaming Frog alternative. It does the basics as well as offers more advanced tools.
This SEO tool gives an in-depth analysis of technical errors with recommendations for improving them.
If you have a team that works on your website, SERPStat can create a custom report that helps your team get up to speed. You will also get a view of your progress while fixing issues.
Other notable features:
- Insights into the strategies employed by your competitors and how you can perform better.
- Rank tracking, which lets you know how you perform without losing sight of your competitors.
- Keyword analysis to improve your content, generate more organic traffic, and reach more target audiences.
Pricing:
Pricing on SERPStat starts from $55. There are higher plans for more advanced features and discounts when you subscribe for more months.
💬 The bottom line
I would recommend SERPStat for anyone looking for a more robust tool that offers the same things as Screaming Frog. Some of its features are better than what you get from Screaming Frog, or you may use both.
5. DeepCrawl
As the name suggests, DeepCrawl was built as a crawling tool, and it does an excellent job.
Its services are divided into three — DeepCrawl Detect for technical SEO issues, DeepCrawl Protect for eliminating errors, and DeepCrawl Connect in charge of integrations.
The SEO Analytics Hub can crawl data from millions of pages to provide in-depth analytics and useful insights for working with them.
SEO Automation Hub from DeepCrawl is another beneficial feature.
It combines insights from numerous SEO parameters to detect errors even before they go live.
Other notable features:
- Seamless integration with a lot of tools you already use, such as Power BI, Tableau, Azure, etc.
- DeepCrawl’s API lets you create custom apps.
- DeepCrawl Connect allows you to represent SEO information in more understandable ways using Google Data Studio and BigQuery.
Pricing:
DeepCrawl used to have a Starter plan at $89/month. But now, you need to fill out a short form with your needs on the pricing page to get pricing information.
💬 The bottom line
DeepCrawl is an enterprise-level Screaming Frog alternative. You can count on it when auditing a website with more extensive needs than what Screaming Frog can provide.
6. Moz, Ahrefs, and SEMRush
These three are some of the most popular SEO tools and the best screaming frog alternatives.
They have similar search engine optimization and site audit tools like Screaming Frog, but they also offer even more powerful features unavailable in the Screaming Frog toolkit.
You can find out about the three tools and compare them to Screaming Frog in my Google ranking software guide.
For extra reading on Ahrefs, check out this post about link-building tools and services or this local SEO guide for more on SEMRush and Moz.
Conclusion
No doubt, Screaming Frog is still a remarkable tool that can help you improve your search engine ranking and overall success when put to good use.
But like all tools, it has its downsides. Plus, you’re allowed to have special needs.
While the tools above will give you many more options to scale your website, it’s also crucial to utilize them alongside helpful content that assists your visitors.
