Lighthouse vs Screaming Frog: which should you choose?
Two Technical SEO tools, compared on what can be checked: pricing model, entry price, declared features, and what each one offers that the other does not. The 0 shared capabilities will not decide anything — the differences will.
Lighthouse
Free
PART 1: Lighthouse is an open-source automated tool developed by Google, designed to help web developers and site owners improve the quality of their web pages. It serves a diverse audience, including web developers, SEO professionals, an…
Lighthouse profile
Screaming Frog
£199/year
Industry-standard website crawler for technical SEO audits. Crawl websites to find broken links, audit redirects, analyze page titles, and discover duplicate content.
Screaming Frog profileSide by side
| Criterion | Lighthouse | Screaming Frog |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Technical SEO | Technical SEO |
| Pricing model | Free | Freemium |
| Entry price | Free | £199/year |
| Listed features | 8 | 6 |
| Community rating | — | 4.7 / 5 |
| Official site | search.google.com | screamingfrog.co.uk |
What each one adds
Only in Lighthouse
- Automated audits for performance and SEO
- Accessibility checks
- Progressive Web App compliance
- Reports generated in real-time
- Multiple running interfaces (DevTools, CLI, Node)
- Actionable recommendations for improvements
- Integration with CI systems
- Open-source and community-driven
Only in Screaming Frog
- Site Crawling
- Broken Link Detection
- Redirect Audit
- Duplicate Content
- XML Sitemaps
- JavaScript Rendering
The verdict, as the data has it
- Entry price: both start at a comparable level.
- Breadth: Lighthouse declares the wider scope (8 features).
- Tight budget: neither has a free tier: plan for a paid trial period.
These criteria can be verified from the vendors' own pages. What no comparison page can verify, and what usually decides, is data quality in your own market: test both on your own keywords and your own domain before signing an annual contract.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Lighthouse and Screaming Frog?
Both cover 0 shared capabilities. Lighthouse adds Automated audits for performance and SEO, Accessibility checks, Progressive Web App compliance, while Screaming Frog adds Site Crawling, Broken Link Detection, Redirect Audit. The decision therefore rests on those differences rather than on the shared base.
Which is cheaper, Lighthouse or Screaming Frog?
Both advertise comparable entry prices. Compare total cost at an equal number of seats and an equivalent project volume instead, which usually reveals a much bigger gap.
Can you use Lighthouse and Screaming Frog together?
Yes, and many teams do when the two cover different jobs. But with 0 overlapping capabilities, paying for both is mostly paying twice for the same data: keep the one your team genuinely opens every week.