Is there a cloud alternative to Screaming Frog for crawling my site?
Yes, depending on what you need. If you want crawls that run without your laptop, keep history and can be driven by an AI assistant, a hosted crawler such as SEOBolt works. If you need deep manual crawl configuration, custom extraction or large local crawls, the Screaming Frog desktop SEO Spider is still the better tool.
By SEOBolt. Published , updated .
Why this happens
Screaming Frog's SEO Spider is a desktop application you install and run on your own machine, and it is the standard tool for hands-on technical audits. People look for a cloud alternative for practical reasons: a crawl that ties up a laptop for hours, a team that wants shared results, a need for scheduled re-crawls, or a wish to let an AI assistant start and read crawls.
A hosted crawler removes the machine from the loop but also removes some control. A desktop spider lets you tune everything, run custom extraction and script against the output; a hosted product trades that for convenience, history and automation. The right choice depends on whether your bottleneck is control or time.
Before paying for anything, it helps to know what a basic crawl actually needs: a list of URLs, their status codes, titles, H1s, canonicals and internal links. You can get the first two with a few lines of shell, and the free version of a desktop crawler covers small sites.
How to crawl a site without a desktop licence, step by step
Pick the lightest option that answers your question.
1. Decide what you need to know
Broken pages and redirects, duplicate titles, indexability, or a full audit? Each needs a different depth of crawl.
2. Get your URL list from the sitemap
Fetch https://yourdomain/sitemap.xml and extract the <loc> entries. A sitemap should list only canonical, indexable URLs, so it is a good first set. Sites with a sitemap index need each child sitemap fetched.
3. Check status codes with a short script
Run: curl -s https://example.com/sitemap.xml | grep -o '<loc>[^<]*' | sed 's/<loc>//' | head -200 | while read u; do printf '%s %s\n' "$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' "$u")" "$u"; done. Anything other than 200 needs a look. This finds broken and redirected sitemap URLs, not orphan pages.
4. For a small site, use the free desktop version
Screaming Frog says its free version crawls up to 500 URLs. If your site is smaller than that and you are comfortable installing software, that is enough for a thorough audit.
5. For regular or larger crawls, use a hosted crawler
A hosted crawler runs on a schedule, keeps audit history and exposes results through an API or MCP server. Check its limits on pages per crawl and its crawl allowance against your site size before committing.
6. Export or read the results and prioritise
Whichever route you use, sort issues by how many pages are affected and whether they block indexing; fix those first.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider and SEOBolt compared
| Aspect | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | SEOBolt |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Desktop application (Windows, macOS, Linux downloads on its pricing page) | Hosted; nothing to install |
| Free option | Free version, crawl limit 500 URLs | A free audit of one domain's homepage, robots.txt, sitemap and llms.txt without signup; full crawls follow your plan |
| Paid | $279 per year for one licence in the USD view of its pricing page; licences last one year | Monthly plans; see SEOBolt's pricing page |
| MCP server | Listed among its features on the pricing page | Remote MCP server over HTTPS with 27 tools |
| Strengths | Deep crawl configuration, custom search and extraction, local control | Hosted crawls, audit history, fix plans with code snippets, AI-search checks, Search Console analysis |
| Backlink or keyword index | Not what it is for | None; SEOBolt has no proprietary index |
When to use SEOBolt for this
SEOBolt is a hosted crawler built to be driven by an AI assistant: your assistant calls seo_start_crawl, then reads seo_audit, seo_issues and seo_fix_plan, where every issue comes with a ready-to-apply code snippet and the affected URLs. It also reports AI-search checks (crawler access, llms.txt, schema) in the same crawl. Nothing runs on your machine. The MCP server is at https://seobolt.app/mcp.
Pages per crawl, the crawl allowance and scheduled re-crawls depend on your plan; /pricing lists them. The free audit at /free-audit checks one domain's homepage, robots.txt, sitemap.xml and llms.txt without signup and is a quick way to see the output format.
MCP tools involved: seo_start_crawl, seo_audit, seo_issues, seo_fix_plan.
When SEOBolt is not the right tool
Choose Screaming Frog if you want a desktop crawler you configure in detail, need custom extraction or scripted analysis of raw crawl data, or prefer a per-year licence. SEOBolt is not meant to replace that kind of hands-on spider work.
Prompt to give your AI assistant
With the SEOBolt MCP server connected (setup), copy this into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Gemini CLI:
Assign to SEOBolt: start a crawl of example.com with seo_start_crawl. When it finishes, read seo_audit and seo_issues, group the issues by how many pages they affect and whether they block indexing, and give me the top five with the fix. Show me what you did so I can approve the next step.
Frequently asked questions
Is Screaming Frog free?
Its pricing page says the SEO Spider is free with a crawl limit of 500 URLs, and that a paid licence (listed at $279 per year in the USD view on 13 November 2026) removes the limit and adds advanced features.
Does Screaming Frog have an MCP server?
Its pricing page lists an MCP Server among its features, as of 13 November 2026. SEOBolt's MCP server is a hosted remote server instead of a desktop one.
Can I schedule crawls with a hosted tool?
Often, but check the plan. With SEOBolt, scheduled re-crawls are tied to certain plans; /pricing lists which.
Can a shell script replace a crawler?
For status codes of sitemap URLs, yes. It does not follow internal links, find orphan pages or inspect page content.
Sources
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider pricing page, read 13 November 2026