Oncrawl vs SpeedCurve in 2026: crawl and log intelligence vs performance monitoring
Oncrawl maps how crawlers, including AI bots, move through your site and where log data shows crawl budget waste. SpeedCurve tracks how fast your pages actually load and ties that to competitive standing and revenue.
Oncrawl
SpeedCurve- Oncrawl audits crawl structure and analyzes server logs to show exactly which URLs search engines and AI bots visit; SpeedCurve does not crawl a site or process log files at all, its job starts after a page is already being requested.
- SpeedCurve's competitive benchmarking tracks named competitor URLs on the same synthetic testing methodology used for your own site, a capability with no equivalent in Oncrawl's documented feature set.
- Oncrawl tracks crawl activity from GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot at the URL level and monitors whether pages are cited in AI-generated answers; SpeedCurve has no AI bot or AI answer visibility tracking of any kind.
- SpeedCurve's business impact correlation connects Core Web Vitals like LCP directly to conversion rate and revenue per session, giving non-technical stakeholders a reason to prioritize performance work.
- SpeedCurve integrates performance budget checks into CI/CD pipelines via its API so a deploy can fail before a regression ships; Oncrawl's REST API is built for exporting crawl, log, and performance data into BI tools like Looker Studio and BigQuery instead.
- Neither tool offers a public self-serve free tier: SpeedCurve starts at $90/month with no free trial advertised, and Oncrawl requires a sales demo before any price is disclosed.
- Oncrawl scored 8.0/10 in our review and SpeedCurve scored 7.9/10, with Oncrawl's edge driven mostly by API and integration depth, and SpeedCurve trailing slightly on value for money given its pricing curve.
Oncrawl and SpeedCurve share a category tag and an audience, technical SEO and performance teams at larger organizations, but they measure almost entirely different things. Oncrawl is a crawl-and-log platform: it audits site structure, maps how Googlebot and AI bots like GPTBot and ClaudeBot actually move through a site via server log analysis, and tracks whether pages are showing up as citations in AI-generated answers. SpeedCurve is a performance monitoring platform built by two of the most recognized names in web performance engineering, combining synthetic testing and real user monitoring with two things few competitors do well: competitive benchmarking against named rivals and a direct line from performance metrics to conversion rate. Both are priced for teams with a budget: Oncrawl requires a sales demo and discloses no numbers, SpeedCurve starts at $90/month and climbs to $576 before its own custom Enterprise tier. Picking between them means picking which measurement gap you actually have open.
The tools at a glance
Oncrawl
Cloud-based technical SEO platform combining crawl data, log analysis, and AI bot tracking.
Oncrawl is built around three data types that most tools keep separate: crawl data, server log data, and performance data. The log analysis piece is the part worth paying attention to, it is not a bolt-on report but a core layer that shows exactly which URLs Googlebot and AI crawlers are actually visiting and how often, versus what you intended them to crawl.
It has extended that same log-based approach to AI search: Oncrawl tracks crawl requests from GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot at the URL level, and a separate AI-generated answer visibility layer checks whether your content is actually showing up as a citation in AI responses. None of that touches page speed directly. Oncrawl does not run synthetic performance tests or track Core Web Vitals trends the way a dedicated monitoring tool does.
Access requires a sales conversation. There is no self-serve signup, no public pricing, and the platform expects a team with the technical SEO staff to configure crawl schedules, log ingestion, and alerting properly. For large sites where crawl budget and AI bot behavior are real problems, that investment is proportionate. For a team whose actual bottleneck is page speed, Oncrawl is the wrong tool entirely.
| Feature | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|
| Pricing model | Custom |
SpeedCurve
Web performance monitoring platform that tracks site speed through synthetic testing and real user monitoring, with competitive benchmarking and business impact correlation.
SpeedCurve was founded by Steve Souders and Mark Zeman, whose names carry real weight in web performance engineering, and the product reflects that pedigree. It runs scheduled synthetic tests from global locations alongside real user monitoring data, putting both on the same timeline so you can see whether a lab score actually matches what visitors experience.
Two features separate it from simpler monitoring tools. Competitive benchmarking lets you add rival URLs and track them using the exact same testing methodology as your own site, so a comparison is not undermined by different measurement approaches. Business impact correlation goes a step further and connects metrics like LCP to conversion rate and revenue, which is the argument that actually moves an engineering roadmap.
None of this comes with a crawl or log analysis layer. SpeedCurve has no concept of AI bot behavior, citation tracking, or site-wide technical audits, its entire job starts and ends at how a page performs once it is requested. Pricing starts at $90/month for Starter and reaches $576/month for Growth, with Enterprise requiring a custom quote and no public free trial at any tier.
| Feature | Starter $90/month | Growth $576/month | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Synthetic monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Real user monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Competitive benchmarking | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Business impact correlation | No | Yes | Yes |
| API access | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CI/CD integration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Performance budgets | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Oncrawl | SpeedCurve |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 8.0 / 10 | 7.9 / 10 |
| Site crawling & technical audits | Yes, core feature | No |
| Server log analysis | Yes, core feature | No |
| AI bot crawl tracking | Yes (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) | No |
| AI-generated answer citation monitoring | Yes, dedicated layer | No |
| Core Web Vitals / RUM monitoring | No | Yes, synthetic + RUM |
| Competitive benchmarking | No, not documented | Yes, named competitor tracking |
| Business impact correlation | No | Yes |
| CI/CD pipeline integration | No, not documented | Yes, via API |
| API access | Yes, REST API | Yes |
| BI / reporting connector | Yes (Looker Studio, BigQuery, Tableau) | No, not documented |
| Self-serve signup | No, demo required | Yes (paid plans, no free trial) |
| Starting price | Contact for pricing | $90/mo |
Oncrawl tracks AI answer citations. That is a narrower job than its enterprise price tag suggests.
Oncrawl's AI-generated answer visibility layer checks whether your pages are actually being cited in AI responses, not just whether AI bots can crawl them, which is a genuinely useful signal as AI search grows. SpeedCurve has no comparable feature since it stays focused on page speed. But Oncrawl only offers that AI citation tracking bundled inside a full enterprise crawl-and-log platform behind a sales demo. AI Peekaboo covers the same underlying job, tracking brand mentions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, as a self-serve product from $50/month with a read and write API on every plan and no sales call required.
Read the AI Peekaboo review →Which should you choose?
OncrawlSpeedCurveSpeedCurveOncrawlSpeedCurveOncrawlThese two are not really competitors, they sit on opposite sides of the same technical SEO stack. Oncrawl answers whether crawlers, human and AI, can reach and are actually visiting your content. SpeedCurve answers how fast that content loads once it is reached and whether that speed is costing you conversions relative to competitors. A team that only owns one of these tools is missing half the picture, but few organizations need both at once, the choice usually comes down to which gap is causing pain right now.
Bottom line
Book the Oncrawl demo if crawl budget waste, log verification, or AI bot visibility is the open question, and your site is large enough to justify enterprise pricing. Sign up for SpeedCurve if the priority is proving performance work against named competitors and translating Core Web Vitals into a revenue argument leadership will actually act on. Teams running both crawl-scale sites and a dedicated performance program will likely end up paying for both tools rather than picking one.
Frequently asked questions
Is Oncrawl or SpeedCurve better for tracking Core Web Vitals?
SpeedCurve is the better choice for tracking Core Web Vitals, since it runs continuous synthetic and real user monitoring specifically built around LCP, CLS, and INP trends. Oncrawl's feature set covers crawl data, log analysis, and AI bot tracking, but it does not document Core Web Vitals monitoring as part of its platform.
Can Oncrawl track whether my content is cited in ChatGPT or Perplexity answers?
Oncrawl includes a dedicated AI-generated answer visibility layer that monitors whether pages appear as citations in AI responses, alongside crawl tracking for bots like GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot. SpeedCurve has no equivalent feature since its focus is page speed rather than search or AI visibility.
Does SpeedCurve offer a free trial before committing to the $90/month Starter plan?
SpeedCurve does not advertise a public free trial, so evaluating the product means contacting their team directly before you commit to the Starter plan at $90/month. Oncrawl works the same way in that respect, requiring a sales demo rather than offering any self-serve trial.
Which tool is better for proving a performance fix improved conversion rate?
SpeedCurve is built specifically for this case through its business impact correlation feature, which connects metrics like LCP directly to conversion rate and revenue per session. Oncrawl does not track business or conversion metrics at all, its data is limited to crawl, log, and performance signals.
Do Oncrawl and SpeedCurve integrate with CI/CD pipelines?
SpeedCurve integrates with CI/CD pipelines through its API, allowing teams to enforce performance budgets and fail a build when a deploy would push a metric past an agreed limit. Oncrawl's API is oriented toward exporting crawl, log, and performance data into BI tools like Looker Studio and BigQuery rather than pipeline automation.
Is there a cheaper way to track AI answer citations than Oncrawl's enterprise platform?
AI Peekaboo tracks the same underlying signal, brand mentions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews answers, as a self-serve product starting at $50/month with a read and write API on every plan. Oncrawl's AI-generated answer visibility feature is real but bundled inside a full enterprise crawl and log platform with contact-only pricing, and SpeedCurve has no AI citation tracking of any kind.