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2026-10-29 22:49 Tool comparisons

Screaming Frog vs Sitebulb (2027): Free Limits, Prices, AI Features and Which Website Crawler a Startup Should Use for SEO Audits

Screaming Frog vs Sitebulb: Which Website Crawler Should a Startup Use?

Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Sitebulb are website crawlers. They visit every page of your site the way a search engine bot does and list what is broken: 404s, redirect chains, missing titles, duplicate pages, blocked pages, slow or badly structured templates. That is technical SEO, the part that decides whether Google can find and index your pages at all. We checked both tools' official product and pricing pages in October 2026, so every price, limit and feature below comes from Screaming Frog or Sitebulb itself.
One correction to the old version of this guide: neither tool is a keyword research tool. They tell you what is wrong with your website, not what your customers search for. For keywords you need a different tool, and we point you to our keyword comparisons further down. For backlink data, see our Moz vs Majestic comparison.
Quick answer: start with the free Screaming Frog SEO Spider. It crawls up to 500 URLs with no sign-up, which covers most startup websites, and a licence costs $279 (£199) a year if you outgrow it. Choose Sitebulb if you want an audit that explains and prioritises each issue for a non-specialist: Lite costs $18 a month for sites up to 10,000 URLs, Pro $42 a month, and you can test Pro free for 14 days. Both now connect to AI assistants such as Claude through MCP.
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Screaming Frog vs Sitebulb at a Glance

Screaming Frog SEO SpiderSitebulb
What it isDesktop website crawler for technical SEO auditsDesktop and cloud website crawler for technical SEO audits
Free optionFree version: 500 URLs per crawl, no sign-up or email14-day free trial of Pro (no credit card); no free plan
Paid price$279 / £199 / €245 per user per yearLite $18 a month ($180 a year), Pro $42 a month ($425 a year)
URLs per crawlUnlimited on a licence (limited by memory and storage)10,000 on Lite, 500,000 on Pro (can be raised to 2 million)
Issues it checks300+ SEO issues, warnings and opportunities100+ Hints on Lite, 300+ on Pro
JavaScript crawlingPaid licence onlyAll plans
AI featuresOpenAI, Gemini and Ollama integrations; MCP server (paid)MCP on all Desktop and Cloud plans, including the trial
IntegrationsGoogle Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, link metrics, Looker Studio (paid)Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Sheets; Data Studio on Cloud
Runs onWindows, macOS and LinuxWindows and macOS; Sitebulb Cloud in the browser
Cloud and teamsNo cloud version; one licence per userSitebulb Cloud from $125 a month (2 users)
Sources: screamingfrog.co.uk SEO Spider, pricing, user guide and release history pages; sitebulb.com pricing, Cloud pricing, MCP and download pages; checked 29 October 2026. Sitebulb prices are its US dollar prices; Screaming Frog shows dollars, pounds and euros.

The Two Crawlers Compared

Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Free for 500 URLs, Then One Yearly Licence

The Screaming Frog SEO Spider comes from Screaming Frog, a UK search marketing agency, and is the crawler many SEO specialists learn on. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, audits a site for more than 300 SEO issues, warnings and opportunities, and gives each issue a type, a priority and an explanation. You can export everything to a spreadsheet, which makes it easy to hand a list of fixes to a developer. Once the site is fixed, keyword and competitor research comes next: see SE Ranking vs Similarweb.
  • Free version: download it and crawl up to 500 URLs per crawl, without any sign-up or email. It finds broken links, errors and redirects, checks page titles, meta descriptions, meta robots and hreflang, finds exact duplicate pages, generates XML sitemaps and draws site visualisations.
  • What the free version leaves out: crawl configuration, saving and reopening crawls, JavaScript rendering, scheduling, crawl comparison, near-duplicate content, structured data checks, spelling and grammar, custom extraction, the Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights integrations, the AI integrations and technical support.
  • Paid licence: $279, £199 or €245 per user per year on the pricing page. It removes the 500-URL limit (the real limit is your computer's memory and storage) and unlocks every feature. Licences last one year and are per user; 5 or more licences cost less each ($265, then $249 from 10 and $235 from 20).
  • Active development: the release history shows version 24.0 on 19 May 2026 and bug-fix release 24.3 on 29 June 2026, with a major version roughly twice a year.
Best for: founders and freelancers who want a free audit of a small site today, and anyone who needs raw data, custom extraction or Linux. Expect a dense, table-based interface; it rewards a little learning.

Screaming Frog's AI Integrations and MCP

Screaming Frog has added AI in three steps. Version 21.0 (November 2024) connected the crawler directly to OpenAI, Gemini and Ollama, so you can run prompts on every page you crawl, for example to draft missing meta descriptions or label page intent. Version 22.0 (June 2025) added semantic similarity analysis and content cluster diagrams to find pages that cover the same topic. Version 24.0 added the Screaming Frog SEO Spider MCP: you can start crawls, analyse and export crawl data from Claude, LM Studio and other AI assistants in plain language. Screaming Frog says not every feature works through MCP yet, and the user guide says the MCP server is a paid licence feature only. The AI integrations are paid too, and you pay your AI provider for the tokens you use.
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Sitebulb Desktop: Lite and Pro, With a 14-Day Free Trial

Sitebulb is a crawler from Sitebulb Limited in the UK, built around explaining issues rather than listing them. Each problem appears as a prioritised "Hint" with an explanation of why it matters and how to fix it, and the audit comes with charts and crawl maps. Sitebulb Desktop runs on Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and macOS Sonoma or later, with at least 4 GB of free RAM (8 GB recommended). There is no Linux version.
  • Lite, $18 a month or $180 a year: 1 user, 10,000 URLs per audit, 100+ Hints, JavaScript crawling, Google Analytics, Search Console and Sheets integrations, duplicate content checks and crawl maps. Sitebulb itself calls Lite an ideal fit for freelancers, startups and website owners.
  • Pro, $42 a month or $425 a year: 500,000 URLs per audit (you can raise it to 2 million if your computer copes), 300+ Hints, advanced configuration, audit comparisons, scheduled audits and customised PDF reports. Extra users cost $11 a month each.
  • Only in Pro: performance and mobile-friendly checks, structured data, international and hreflang, spell checker, accessibility, AMP, scheduling and auto-export to Google Sheets.
  • Trial and terms: the 14-day free trial works like Pro and needs no credit card (you register with your name and email). Yearly billing saves about 15%, you pay by card or PayPal, and you can cancel at any time.
  • AI: the Sitebulb MCP brings your projects, audits, issues and URL data into Claude, ChatGPT and other AI assistants, on all Desktop and Cloud plans, including the free trial.
Best for: founders, marketers and small agencies who want to understand what to fix first and send a clear report to a developer or client. See the full plan list on the Sitebulb pricing page.

Sitebulb Cloud: for Teams and Very Large Sites

Sitebulb Cloud runs the same audits in the browser, so a team works from the same crawl data and recurring audits run without anyone's laptop. Every plan has unlimited projects, recurring audits, MCP access and unlimited Google Analytics and Search Console accounts.
  • Mini, $125 a month: 2 users, 50,000 URLs a month and per audit, no desktop licences.
  • Small, $245 a month: 5 users with desktop licences, 1 million URLs a month, 250,000 per audit.
  • Medium, $495 a month: 10 users, 2.5 million URLs a month, 1 million per audit and concurrent crawling.
  • Enterprise: custom pricing for 10+ users and 5 million+ URLs a month.
For most startups Cloud is more than they need: a single website with a few thousand pages fits easily in Sitebulb Lite or Pro, or in Screaming Frog's free version if it stays under 500 URLs.
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Screaming Frog vs Sitebulb: Feature by Feature

Price

For one person, Screaming Frog is free up to 500 URLs and then $279 a year. Sitebulb has no free plan, but Lite is cheaper per year ($180) as long as your site stays under 10,000 URLs; Pro costs $425 a year. Monthly billing is the bigger difference: Sitebulb lets you pay $18 or $42 for a single month, run your audit and cancel, while a Screaming Frog licence is sold by the year.

Ease of use and reports

This is where the tools differ most. Screaming Frog shows the crawl as tabs and filters of raw data, which experts like because they can slice it any way they want. Sitebulb turns the same kind of data into prioritised Hints with explanations, charts and PDF reports (PDF reports are a Pro feature). In our opinion, a founder without SEO experience gets to a fix list faster with Sitebulb; an SEO specialist gets more control with Screaming Frog.

Crawl size

A Screaming Frog licence has no fixed URL cap, only your computer's memory and storage. Sitebulb caps Lite at 10,000 URLs per audit and Pro at 500,000 (up to 2 million on request). A typical startup site with a blog has a few hundred to a few thousand URLs, so the caps rarely matter at the start; they matter for online shops with filters and large content sites.

JavaScript websites

If your site is built with React, Vue, Angular or a no-code builder that loads content with JavaScript, the crawler must render pages to see what Google sees. Sitebulb includes JavaScript crawling on every plan; in Screaming Frog it needs a paid licence.

AI and automation

Both tools now have an MCP server, so you can ask an AI assistant to run or summarise an audit. Sitebulb includes it on every plan and in the trial; Screaming Frog limits it to licence holders but goes further inside the crawler, with direct OpenAI, Gemini and Ollama prompts on every crawled page, semantic similarity and content clusters. Scheduling exists in both (Screaming Frog paid, Sitebulb Pro), and Screaming Frog can also run from the command line.

Integrations and platforms

Screaming Frog's paid version connects to Google Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and link metrics, and exports a Looker Studio crawl report. Sitebulb connects to Google Analytics, Search Console and Google Sheets, with Data Studio on Cloud. Screaming Frog is the only one of the two with a Linux version; Sitebulb is the only one with a cloud version.

Neither Is a Keyword Research Tool: What to Use Instead

A crawler tells you what is wrong with pages you already have. It does not tell you which searches have demand, how hard they are to rank for or what competitors rank for. For that you need keyword data from Google or an SEO suite:
Many founders combine a free crawler with one paid SEO suite: the suite finds the keywords, the crawler keeps the site technically clean.

What Changed Since the Old Version of This Guide

  • Screaming Frog's price: the old "$259 a year" is out of date. A licence now costs $279, £199 or €245 per user per year; the free version still crawls 500 URLs.
  • Sitebulb's prices: the old "$17.50 a month" is now Lite at $18 a month, and Sitebulb Cloud no longer starts at $245 a month: the new Mini plan costs $125, and $245 is the Small plan.
  • AI: both tools now have MCP servers, and Screaming Frog has OpenAI, Gemini and Ollama integrations, semantic similarity and content clusters.
  • Removed: the claim that these are keyword research tools, the unsourced "Sitebulb lacks configuration and APIs" verdict, the "common SEO mistakes" filler and third-party "learn more" links.

Screaming Frog or Sitebulb: Which Should You Choose?

  • Your site has fewer than 500 URLs and no budget: Screaming Frog's free version. Add free Site Audit from Ahrefs Free and other tools in our free Ahrefs alternatives.
  • You are not an SEO specialist and want a clear to-do list: Sitebulb Lite at $18 a month, after the 14-day trial.
  • You need one audit, not a subscription: one month of Sitebulb Lite or Pro, then cancel.
  • Your site is built with JavaScript: Sitebulb (all plans) or a Screaming Frog licence; the free Screaming Frog version does not render JavaScript.
  • You want the most control, custom extraction, Linux or AI prompts on every page: a Screaming Frog licence.
  • Your team shares audits or you crawl hundreds of thousands of pages: Sitebulb Cloud, or Screaming Frog licences for each specialist.
  • You prefer self-hosted, open-source software: see our open-source Ahrefs alternatives, including the LibreCrawl crawler.

How Founders Use a Site Crawler

You do not need to audit every month at the start. Run a crawl before launch, after every redesign or migration, and whenever Search Console shows pages dropping out of the index. A first audit for a startup website usually comes down to five checks:
  1. Broken links and 404s on your own pages, especially from the homepage, pricing and blog.
  2. Redirect chains left over from a domain or URL change.
  3. Missing or duplicate titles and meta descriptions, which decide what people see in Google.
  4. Pages blocked by noindex or robots.txt by mistake, a common leftover from a staging site.
  5. An up-to-date XML sitemap, submitted in Search Console.
Then look at the audit in the context of your other SEO work. Our older roundup of free SEO audit tools covers more free checkers, and our guide to SEO ranking checker tools shows how to track whether fixes move your rankings. Comparing enterprise platforms instead? See BrightEdge vs Rank Tracker.
A clean site only brings customers if it has pages worth finding. The F/MS AI SEO Tool writes articles from your keywords that are built to rank on Google and to be cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity, with human editors checking them. For links, our startup directory list shows where to submit your startup, and F/MS Marketing Services can add guest posts and backlinks. If you are still testing whether anyone needs your product, validate your startup idea before you invest in SEO.
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FAQ: Screaming Frog vs Sitebulb

Is Screaming Frog or Sitebulb better for a startup?

Start with Screaming Frog's free version if your site has fewer than 500 URLs. Choose Sitebulb if you want prioritised, explained issues and reports: Lite costs $18 a month and Pro $42 a month, with a 14-day free trial.

Is Screaming Frog free?

Yes, up to 500 URLs per crawl, with no sign-up. Saving crawls, crawl configuration, JavaScript rendering, scheduling, integrations and AI features need a licence, which cost $279, £199 or €245 per user per year when we checked in October 2026.

Does Sitebulb have a free version?

No. Sitebulb has a 14-day free trial that works like Sitebulb Pro and needs no credit card. After that, Lite costs $18 a month ($180 a year) and Pro $42 a month ($425 a year).

Are Screaming Frog and Sitebulb keyword research tools?

No. Both are website crawlers for technical SEO audits. For keyword research use Google Keyword Planner, Keyword Tool or an SEO suite such as Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz.

How many URLs can each tool crawl?

Screaming Frog's free version crawls 500 URLs; a licence has no fixed limit apart from your computer's memory and storage. Sitebulb Lite crawls 10,000 URLs per audit and Pro 500,000, which can be raised to 2 million.

Where can I submit a guest post about my startup?

You can publish a guest post in one of the Fe/male Switch startup blogs, which rank in Google and in AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Get a quality backlink.

Can I use Screaming Frog or Sitebulb with ChatGPT or Claude?

Yes. Both have an MCP server. Sitebulb's works with Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants on every plan and in the trial; Screaming Frog's works in Claude, LM Studio and other assistants with a paid licence, which also unlocks its OpenAI, Gemini and Ollama integrations.

Does Sitebulb run on Linux?

No. Sitebulb Desktop runs on Windows 10 or 11 and macOS Sonoma or later, and Sitebulb Cloud runs in the browser. Screaming Frog runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.

How much does Sitebulb Cloud cost?

Sitebulb Cloud starts at $125 a month for 2 users and 50,000 URLs a month (Mini). Small costs $245 a month and Medium $495 a month; Enterprise is priced on request.

Can I use AI to write SEO articles after fixing my site?

Yes. The F/MS AI SEO Tool writes articles from your keywords that are built to rank on Google and in AI assistants, with human editors reviewing them.

About the Author

Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.