Key takeaways
- The desktop crawler most technical SEOs already have open.
- It crawls an entire site. We audit one page and probe a bounded set of URLs around it, and a 50,000-page e-commerce catalogue is not something this product can do today.
- It runs on your machine and stores nothing for you. Two audits six weeks apart are two CSVs unless you keep them yourself; our monitoring keeps the history and tells you what changed.
- Plans start at $4.99 a month. Free tools need no account.
People ask whether they should leave Screaming Frog SEO Spider for Crawlwise. The honest answer is usually no, and also not “stay forever and ignore the page in front of you.” The desktop crawler most technical SEOs already have open. A Java desktop application that crawls a whole site from your own machine, with a paid licence that removes the 500-URL cap. This piece is the friendly version of that trade-off, written so you can choose with a clear head.
Give Screaming Frog SEO Spider the credit it has earned
A comparison that only praises us is marketing, and you would feel it by the second paragraph. Here is where Screaming Frog SEO Spider is the stronger product, in plain language:
- It crawls an entire site. We audit one page and probe a bounded set of URLs around it, and a 50,000-page e-commerce catalogue is not something this product can do today.
- It renders JavaScript with an embedded Chromium. Our checks read the HTML the server returns, so a client-rendered page looks thin to us and fine to it.
- It has a log file analyser, custom extraction with XPath and CSS selectors, a visual sitemap, scheduled crawls and a config file per client. We have none of that.
- It is a one-off licence with no per-use cost, so crawling a large site repeatedly costs nothing extra.
If that list describes your actual week, stay. You will be happier, and you will do better work. We would rather you trust the next section because this one was fair.
Keep the tool that matches the job. Screaming Frog SEO Spider has jobs it wins. Crawlwise has a different one, and it is a good one.
Adnan Arodiya, Crawlwise
Where a Crawlwise sitting feels different
Our job is narrower, and we like it that way. You paste a URL. We show the evidence. We say when a check could not run. And we fetch the page as the answer-engine crawlers, so you know whether they can read it.
- It runs on your machine and stores nothing for you. Two audits six weeks apart are two CSVs unless you keep them yourself; our monitoring keeps the history and tells you what changed.
- It reports what it found. We answer whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended can actually reach the page — by fetching it as each of them — which no crawler does.
- Its issue list is mechanical. Ours is grouped into things to fix, things worth considering with a real opt-out, and things that were not measured.
- You have to be at your desk. This runs from a URL.
That is the whole invitation. You can try the free tools with no account, then run a full audit when you want the checks together. A single page is about 1.25 credits, quoted before you click.
What we will not pretend
- A free desktop tool with no account against a hosted service with a credit balance.
Hold both products to that standard. If a page implies we replace their index, their desktop crawl, or their keyword history, it is wrong. Send people here instead.
A kind way to decide this week
Pick the URL a customer actually uses. Run the overlapping check in Screaming Frog SEO Spider if you already have it open, and run the same URL through a Crawlwise tool or a full audit. Put the two results side by side. Keep every finding you can verify. Discard the rest. You will leave with a shorter list and a better mood, which is the point of a good afternoon.
Then fix one thing on staging and check it again. The second run is how you know the fix landed. Save the Crawlwise report if you want next month to remember what you did. History is a small kindness you can give your future self.
What a plan actually costs
The free tools stay free. You can open them, run them, and leave without an account. A plan is for the moment you want the report saved, a few sites watched, or the same checks from the API. The price on this table is the price at checkout. A yearly plan is ten months of the monthly price, so two months are on us.
| Plan | Monthly | Credits | A good fit when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $4.99 | 10 | You look after one site and check it now and then |
| Pro | $14.99 | 40 | A few sites, plus the API and a handful of watched URLs |
| Studio | $49.99 | 150 | Client work that would burn through Pro mid-month |
| Agency | $99.99 | 400 | Many locations, reported under your own name |
A single-page audit is about 1.25 credits, and that includes the live probe of answer-engine crawlers. You see the estimate before anything runs. If a hold is not used, it comes back to your balance. Extra credits, when you already subscribe, are $9.99 for 20.
You can root for both
Screaming Frog SEO Spider can stay in your toolkit. Crawlwise can sit beside it for the page-level questions, the crawler probe, and a price you can see. You do not have to pick a side to do good work. Open the URL, read the evidence, and ship the fix you can explain. That is a win, and you are close to it.
Crawlwise and Screaming Frog SEO Spider
| What you get | Crawlwise | Screaming Frog SEO Spider |
|---|---|---|
| Crawlwise difference 1 | It runs on your machine and stores nothing for you. Two audits six weeks apart are two CSVs unless you keep them yourself; our monitoring keeps the history and tells you what changed. | Not the focus of that product |
| Crawlwise difference 2 | It reports what it found. We answer whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended can actually reach the page — by fetching it as each of them — which no crawler does. | Not the focus of that product |
| Crawlwise difference 3 | Its issue list is mechanical. Ours is grouped into things to fix, things worth considering with a real opt-out, and things that were not measured. | Not the focus of that product |
| Screaming edge 1 | Not what we built | It crawls an entire site. We audit one page and probe a bounded set of URLs around it, and a 50,000-page e-commerce catalogue is not something this product can do today. |
| Screaming edge 2 | Not what we built | It renders JavaScript with an embedded Chromium. Our checks read the HTML the server returns, so a client-rendered page looks thin to us and fine to it. |
| Screaming edge 3 | Not what we built | It has a log file analyser, custom extraction with XPath and CSS selectors, a visual sitemap, scheduled crawls and a config file per client. We have none of that. |
Run the checks on your live site
Free tools answer one question. A full audit scores the page, tests answer-engine crawlers, and saves to history on a plan.
Frequently asked questions
Meet the author
Adnan Arodiya
Crawlwise
Writes about what Crawlwise actually measures: on-page evidence, crawler access, and performance signals — with the limits stated up front.
