Head to head
Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.
Up to 4 tools, same rows for each: what it is, what it really costs, the trap, and how to wire it up. The URL carries your picks — send it to anyone.
Google Search ConsoleHacker News and RedditLighthouse / PageSpeed Insights
| Field | Google Search Consolesearch.google.com | Hacker News and Redditnews.ycombinator.com | Lighthouse / PageSpeed Insightspagespeed.web.dev |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Search Console reports how a site performs in Google: queries, impressions, clicks and average position, plus index coverage, sitemap submission, Core Web Vitals and manual action notices. Data spans 16 months and can be exported by API or streamed into BigQuery. | Hacker News ranks links by upvotes with a steep time decay, and Show HN is the convention for launching your own work. Reddit distributes through topical subreddits, each governed by its own self-promotion rules and volunteer moderators. | PageSpeed Insights runs Google's open-source Lighthouse audit against a URL and scores performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO alongside lab Core Web Vitals. It also surfaces real-user CrUX field data — LCP, INP and CLS from actual Chrome visitors — when a URL has enough traffic. |
| Category | SEO, growth & newsletter | SEO, growth & newsletter | SEO, growth & newsletter |
| Cost tier | free | free | free |
| Pricing | Free forever, no paid tier and no seat limits. Performance data covers 16 months. API, Looker Studio connector and BigQuery bulk export all included at no cost. | Free. Hacker News sells no placement at all. Reddit sells ads separately, but organic posts in any subreddit cost nothing. | Free. Web UI is unlimited; the PageSpeed Insights API allows 25,000 requests/day at no cost. Lighthouse is open source under Apache 2.0 and runs in Chrome DevTools, the CLI or CI. |
| Why builders pick it | The only source of real query data — every other tool estimates. It shows which articles Google already ranks and which queries you nearly rank for, which is where the cheapest traffic lives. | A front-page HN post moves thousands of technically-minded readers in an afternoon and reliably produces backlinks. One well-matched subreddit can outperform every paid channel for a niche publication. | Core Web Vitals are both a ranking input and a real bounce factor on image-heavy article pages. Lighthouse CI can fail a build when a page regresses, so performance stops rotting silently. |
| Watch out for | The Performance UI caps at 1,000 rows per query and samples heavily; use the API or BigQuery export for full data. Its numbers will never match your analytics tool. | Both punish marketing tone: HN buries promotional titles and Reddit mods ban accounts with no comment history. Spikes are single-day events, and an HN front page can take down under-provisioned hosting. | Lab scores swing between runs and reward synthetic conditions — trust the CrUX field data over the headline score. A new site has no field data at all for months. |
| How to wire it up | Verify via DNS TXT record or your host's one-click integration. | Post as Show HN with a plain descriptive title and no adjectives. | npx lighthouse https://example.com --view |
| Editor's pick | No | No | No |
Which one did you ship?
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# Tool comparison — Google Search Console vs Hacker News and Reddit vs Lighthouse / PageSpeed Insights Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects. Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code. ## Google Search Console (google-search-console) - URL: https://search.google.com/search-console - Category: SEO, growth & newsletter - Cost: free — Free forever, no paid tier and no seat limits. Performance data covers 16 months. API, Looker Studio connector and BigQuery bulk export all included at no cost. - What it is: Search Console reports how a site performs in Google: queries, impressions, clicks and average position, plus index coverage, sitemap submission, Core Web Vitals and manual action notices. Data spans 16 months and can be exported by API or streamed into BigQuery. - Why builders pick it: The only source of real query data — every other tool estimates. It shows which articles Google already ranks and which queries you nearly rank for, which is where the cheapest traffic lives. - Trap: The Performance UI caps at 1,000 rows per query and samples heavily; use the API or BigQuery export for full data. Its numbers will never match your analytics tool. - Wiring: Verify via DNS TXT record or your host's one-click integration. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/google-search-console ## Hacker News and Reddit (hacker-news-and-reddit) - URL: https://news.ycombinator.com - Category: SEO, growth & newsletter - Cost: free — Free. Hacker News sells no placement at all. Reddit sells ads separately, but organic posts in any subreddit cost nothing. - What it is: Hacker News ranks links by upvotes with a steep time decay, and Show HN is the convention for launching your own work. Reddit distributes through topical subreddits, each governed by its own self-promotion rules and volunteer moderators. - Why builders pick it: A front-page HN post moves thousands of technically-minded readers in an afternoon and reliably produces backlinks. One well-matched subreddit can outperform every paid channel for a niche publication. - Trap: Both punish marketing tone: HN buries promotional titles and Reddit mods ban accounts with no comment history. Spikes are single-day events, and an HN front page can take down under-provisioned hosting. - Wiring: Post as Show HN with a plain descriptive title and no adjectives. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/hacker-news-and-reddit ## Lighthouse / PageSpeed Insights (lighthouse-pagespeed-insights) - URL: https://pagespeed.web.dev - Category: SEO, growth & newsletter - Cost: free — Free. Web UI is unlimited; the PageSpeed Insights API allows 25,000 requests/day at no cost. Lighthouse is open source under Apache 2.0 and runs in Chrome DevTools, the CLI or CI. - What it is: PageSpeed Insights runs Google's open-source Lighthouse audit against a URL and scores performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO alongside lab Core Web Vitals. It also surfaces real-user CrUX field data — LCP, INP and CLS from actual Chrome visitors — when a URL has enough traffic. - Why builders pick it: Core Web Vitals are both a ranking input and a real bounce factor on image-heavy article pages. Lighthouse CI can fail a build when a page regresses, so performance stops rotting silently. - Trap: Lab scores swing between runs and reward synthetic conditions — trust the CrUX field data over the headline score. A new site has no field data at all for months. - Wiring: npx lighthouse https://example.com --view - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/lighthouse-pagespeed-insights ## Rules 1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is. 2. Read the full dossier before integrating. 3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.
Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=google-search-console,hacker-news-and-reddit,lighthouse-pagespeed-insights