Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop crawler that has been the default technical SEO tool for years. You install it, point it at a site, and get every URL with its status, titles, headings, canonicals, directives and much more, to filter and export. SEO Audit Hub runs in the browser and is built for a different job: turning a crawl into a short, ranked list of fixes, and a report you can hand to someone else.
At a glance
| SEO Audit Hub | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | In the browser; nothing to install | Desktop app you install on Windows, macOS or Linux |
| Free version | 500 pages per audit, 1 audit a month, no time limit | Up to 500 URLs per crawl |
| Paid price | Free; then $19/month (Starter) or $49/month (Pro), billed monthly | £199 per licence per year (lower per licence when you buy five or more) |
| Crawl size | Up to 2,500 pages per audit on Starter, 5,000 on Pro | Unlimited with a licence, bounded by your computer’s memory and storage |
| JavaScript rendering | No; it reads the HTML the server sends | Yes |
| What you get | Health score, a ranked task plan, comparison with the previous audit, PDF report, CSV export, share link | Complete crawl data in filterable tables, with exports |
| Client reporting | PDF with your logo (Pro), read-only share links, viewer seats | Build your own from the exports |
Where Screaming Frog is the better choice
- JavaScript-heavy sites. Screaming Frog can render pages in a browser engine before reading them. SEO Audit Hub reads the HTML your server sends, which is what many crawlers see on their first pass, but it won’t see content that only appears after scripts run.
- Very large sites. With a licence, crawl size is limited by your machine, not a plan. Our largest plan stops at 5,000 pages per audit.
- Deep, one-off investigations. If you want to configure exactly what is crawled, pull custom data out of pages, and slice the results yourself, a desktop crawler built for analysts gives you far more control.
- Price per page, if you crawl a lot. One annual licence covers as many crawls as you like.
Where SEO Audit Hub is the better choice
- You want the fix list, not the raw data. Each failing check becomes one task with the pages it affects and how to fix it, ranked by impact against effort. You don’t need to know which columns to filter.
- You re-audit the same sites. Every audit is kept, and each new one is compared with the last: what was fixed, what is new, what is still open, and a score per area.
- Someone else reads the results. Send a PDF with your logo, share a read-only link that opens without a login, or invite a client as a viewer. Developers get a CSV of every finding.
- Nobody wants to install anything. It runs in the browser, on any machine, for everyone on the team.
- Search data next to findings. Connect Search Console, GA4 or Bing Webmaster Tools and the audit shows each page’s clicks and queries beside its issues.
Using both
They aren’t mutually exclusive. A common split is Screaming Frog for deep dives and migrations, where you need every row, and SEO Audit Hub for the recurring audit and the report a client or manager actually reads.
Try it on the same site
The quickest comparison is your own site. Run a free SEO Audit Hub audit (no account needed to start) and put the task plan next to your last Screaming Frog crawl.