Side by side
| Feature | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Surfer |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Desktop website crawler for technical SEO audits: finds broken links, errors, redirects, and metadata issues on any site. | Content optimization and AI visibility platform helping SEO and marketing teams rank on Google and get cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. |
| Price from | 279 USD/yr | 82 EUR/mo |
| Free plan | yes | trial |
| Platforms | windows, mac, linux | web, chrome, api |
| API | not stated | yes |
Screaming Frog SEO Spider: key features
- Finds broken links, errors and redirect chains
- Analyses page titles, meta descriptions and robots directives
- JavaScript rendering for crawling dynamic sites
- Custom extraction and custom search across source code
- Integrations with Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights
- Crawl comparison, scheduling and Looker Studio crawl reports
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Surfer: key features
- Optimized content editor based on real-time SEO data
- AI visibility tracking across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and AI Overviews
- SEO audit and site plan
- Topic and content idea discovery matched to search intent
- Existing page improvement and content gap analysis
- Chrome extension, API and MCP
FAQ
Is Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Surfer better?
It depends on the job - compare prices, free plans and features in the table above.
Are Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Surfer free?
Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Yes, there is a free plan. Free version crawls up to 500 URLs and includes most core features such as broken link detection, metadata analysis, sitemap generation and Google Analytics and Search Console integrations. Free Technical Support is included. Surfer: There is a free trial. Free tools include a free AI visibility audit, a Chrome extension, AI detector and AI humanizer, plus a free AI search optimization course. The main platform is offered as a free start option on the homepage ('Start for Free'), with limits not specified in the provided text.