Screaming Frog SEO Spider vs Screpy in 2026: A desktop crawler built for depth vs a $10 all-in-one dashboard
One is a local crawler that gives up polish for raw diagnostic power at a flat yearly price. The other bundles auditing, rank tracking, uptime, and page speed into a cheap cloud dashboard with no API. They are not really chasing the same buyer.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Screpy- Screaming Frog's paid license removes the 500 URL crawl cap entirely for £199 per year, with volume discounts down to £169 per license at 20 or more seats.
- Screpy bundles auditing, rank tracking, uptime monitoring, and Core Web Vitals into one dashboard starting at $10 a month for 2,500 monthly credits.
- Screaming Frog includes server log analysis in the standard license at no extra cost, a feature many competitors charge separately for. Screpy has no log analysis capability at all.
- Screpy does not offer API access on any of its three tiers. Screaming Frog exposes crawl data through custom XPath, CSS, and regex extraction plus direct Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights integrations.
- Screpy is mid-rebuild: the vendor signals a significant platform update in development, which adds short-term uncertainty about feature stability for current users.
- Screaming Frog runs locally on Windows, macOS, or Linux with no built-in collaboration; Screpy is a cloud dashboard any teammate can log into without installing anything.
- Screpy's white-label PDF reporting is available from its $30 a month Pro tier. Screaming Frog has no white-label layer; its output is raw, exportable crawl data.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Screpy both show up in "affordable SEO tool" searches, but they are built for different jobs. Screaming Frog is a desktop application that has been the default technical SEO crawler since 2010: it caps the free tier at 500 URLs and removes that limit entirely for £199 a year, with server log analysis, custom extraction, and Google integrations included in the standard license. Screpy is a cloud dashboard that bundles website auditing, rank tracking, uptime monitoring, and Core Web Vitals into one subscription starting at $10 a month, aimed at people who would otherwise be paying for four separate tools. The trade-off is depth versus breadth: Screaming Frog goes deep on crawling and nothing else, Screpy goes wide across several disciplines but shallower in each one, and has no API on any plan.
The tools at a glance
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
The industry-standard desktop crawler for technical SEO audits.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider runs on your own machine rather than in the cloud, which means crawl speed depends on your hardware and your data never leaves your computer. The free version stops at 500 URLs per crawl; the paid license at £199 a year removes that cap completely and adds JavaScript rendering via Chromium, custom extraction rules, and Google integrations. It is not the tool you show a client on a screen share for polish, it is the tool you use to actually find what is broken.
Server log analysis is the feature that sets it apart from most crawlers at any price. Upload Apache, Nginx, or IIS logs and the Spider maps which URLs Googlebot is actually visiting against your site structure, exposing where crawl budget is being wasted. Plenty of tools charge extra for this or skip it entirely; Screaming Frog includes it in the base license, which alone can justify the annual cost on a large site.
What you do not get is a hosted dashboard, scheduled cloud crawls, or a shared workspace for a team without buying separate licenses per machine. It is built for practitioners who want direct control over the crawl and are comfortable filtering and exporting raw data themselves rather than being handed a pre-packaged report.
| Feature | Free Free (500 URL cap) | Single License £199/year | 5-9 Licenses £189/license/year | 10-19 Licenses £179/license/year | 20+ Licenses £169/license/year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| URL crawl limit | 500 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Server log analysis | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| JavaScript rendering | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom extraction (XPath/CSS/regex) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Google Analytics / Search Console integration | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Screpy
AI-powered SEO platform combining site audits, rank tracking, page speed monitoring, and uptime checks from $10 a month
Screpy is built around consolidation: instead of running separate subscriptions for a site auditor, a rank tracker, an uptime monitor, and a page speed checker, it puts all four in one $10 to $59 a month dashboard. The audit module uses AI to translate crawl findings into plain-language, prioritized recommendations, which lowers the barrier for founders and marketers without a technical SEO background.
The bundling is genuinely the point, not a side feature. Rank tracking covers scheduled keyword position monitoring, Core Web Vitals are pulled from Lighthouse and tracked over time, and uptime checks ping the site and alert by email if it goes down. None of these individually match a dedicated tool in its category, but having all four under one login removes the overhead of stitching together four different vendors for a small site.
The catch is depth and access. Crawl volume runs on a monthly credit system rather than an unlimited cap, there is no API on any tier so the data cannot be piped into a custom dashboard, and the platform is currently in the middle of a rebuild that the vendor has flagged publicly, which means some features may shift before the new version stabilizes.
| Feature | Lite $10/month | Pro $30/month | Advanced $59/month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly credits | 2,500 | 8,000 | 30,000 |
| Rank tracker | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Uptime monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Competitor tracking | No | Yes | Yes |
| White-label PDF reports | No | Yes | Yes |
| API access | No | No | No |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Screpy |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment model | Desktop app (Windows, macOS, Linux) | Cloud dashboard |
| URL / crawl volume | Unlimited (500 on free tier) | Credit-based (2,500 to 30,000/mo) |
| JavaScript rendering | Yes | Not stated |
| Server log analysis | Yes, included | No |
| Rank tracking | No | Yes |
| Uptime monitoring | No | Yes |
| Core Web Vitals tracking | Via PageSpeed Insights integration | Yes |
| Custom data extraction | Yes (XPath, CSS, regex) | No |
| API access | No dedicated API, but integrates with Google Analytics and Search Console | No |
| White-label reporting | No | Yes (Pro tier and above) |
| Free tier | Yes (500 URL cap) | No (free trial only) |
| Starting price | Free / £199/yr | $10/mo |
Which should you choose?
Screaming Frog SEO SpiderScrepyScreaming Frog SEO SpiderScrepyScreaming Frog SEO SpiderScrepyThese two are not really substitutes for each other. Screaming Frog is a specialist instrument: it crawls and logs deeply and does nothing else, and the depth is the entire value proposition. Screpy is a generalist dashboard: it does four adjacent jobs at a price that would not cover one seat of most dedicated tools in any single category, and the trade-off is that none of those four jobs go as deep as a dedicated tool would. Choose based on whether the job in front of you needs forensic crawl depth or broad, low-maintenance monitoring.
Bottom line
Buy the Screaming Frog license if the work involves large sites, migrations, or crawl-budget problems where raw data and log analysis are the point. Try Screpy if the goal is replacing four cheap subscriptions with one, you can live without an API, and you are comfortable that the platform is actively being rebuilt. For a solo consultant running a handful of small client sites, Screpy at $10 a month is hard to beat on value; for anyone auditing a site with real technical complexity, Screaming Frog is not optional.
Frequently asked questions
Is Screaming Frog SEO Spider still worth it in 2026 compared to a cheaper cloud tool like Screpy?
Yes, for anyone doing technical SEO work at meaningful scale, since £199 a year for unlimited crawls plus included server log analysis is difficult to match at any price point, let alone Screpy's $10 to $59 range. Screpy is a reasonable alternative only if the actual need is lightweight monitoring rather than deep crawl diagnostics.
Does Screpy have an API for pulling audit data into a custom dashboard?
No. Screpy does not offer API access on any of its three plans, Lite, Pro, or Advanced. If a workflow requires piping data into an internal BI tool or dashboard, Screaming Frog's custom extraction and Google integrations, or a different platform entirely, is the better fit.
Can Screaming Frog do rank tracking the way Screpy does?
No, Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a crawler, not a rank tracker, and has no keyword position monitoring feature. Teams that want crawl data and rank tracking in the same place would need to pair Screaming Frog with a separate rank tracking tool, whereas Screpy includes basic rank tracking on every plan.
Is Screpy good enough to replace Screaming Frog for a large e-commerce site audit?
Probably not on its own. Screpy's crawl depth and checks run on a monthly credit allocation and are described by the vendor itself as thinner than dedicated crawlers, which makes it better suited to a monthly health check than a primary audit tool for a large or complex site.
How much does Screaming Frog cost for an agency running multiple licenses?
A single license is £199 per year. Volume pricing drops that to £189 per license for 5 to 9 licenses, £179 for 10 to 19, and £169 per license for 20 or more, with each license tied to one machine but transferable.
What happens to my Screpy account while the platform rebuild is in progress?
Existing users keep access to the current version of Screpy while the vendor finishes work on a new version, based on their public rebuild announcement. Some features may change as the new version rolls out, so teams relying on specific current functionality should confirm directly with Screpy before making it a primary tool.